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Sir John Curtice: Do local election results point to a hung Parliament? - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Using how people voted in local elections to predict a potential general election result poses difficulties. | UK Politics | We perhaps should not be surprised that the prime minister has seized upon an extrapolation of Thursday's local election results that pointed to the prospect that the general election could result in a hung parliament in which Labour would be the largest party.
Such a scenario, he argued, would mean that Sir Keir Starmer would be "propped up in Downing Street" by the SNP, the Liberal Democrats, and the Greens.
Many Conservative MPs (and indeed Labour ones too) believe that a poster their party ran in the 2015 election, when the polls were pointing to a hung parliament, showing the then Labour leader, Ed Miliband, in the pocket of the former SNP leader, Alex Salmond, played a key role in delivering the Conservatives a surprise overall majority.
Whether or not that is what happened is not easy for analysts to say. However, British Election Study data collected at the time did not show any marked swing away from Labour among those who came to believe that Mr Miliband would be willing to do a deal with the SNP.
But, in any event, how realistic is it to use the share of the vote won by the parties in local elections to anticipate what might happen in an immediate general election? There are certainly two potential difficulties.
Although the ups and downs in party performance in local elections often run in parallel with the rises and falls in party support in the polls, some people (around one in five) vote differently in local elections than they would in a general election.
As a result the divergence between the level of support parties win in a local election and how well they would perform in a general election has become more marked.
Nowadays the Liberal Democrats consistently outperform their national standing in the local ballot boxes. The same has also come to be true of the Greens, while independent candidates have also enjoyed some notable success in recent years. Labour, in contrast, often do less well in local elections.
Meanwhile, the party political battle in Scotland is now very different from that in England - and the outcome of the current battle north of the border between Labour and the SNP could be crucial to the result of the next election. English local elections do not tell us much about what will happen north of the border.
These developments have made discerning the implications of local elections for the outcome of a general election more difficult.
At the same time, there are two particular features of the results of this year's local elections that make it especially difficult.
First, the polls suggest that more people who voted Conservative in 2019 have now switched to Reform than to Labour. But Reform were only on the ballot paper in one in six council wards. So, it may well be the case that people who would vote Reform if there had been a Reform candidate locally stuck with the Tories instead.
Certainly, Conservative support fell more heavily where Reform did stand. In the BBC's sample of key wards the party's support fell by 19 points in these wards - compared with 11 points in wards where Reform did not stand. Labour, in contrast, did rather better where Reform stood.
That 19-point drop matches the 19-point fall in the average level of Conservative support in the polls since May 2021. That figure may represent a better guide to the Conservatives' immediate prospects in a general election.
Second, the local election results confirm the message from last year's contests that the geography of party support has changed to the Conservatives' disadvantage.
The party's support fell more heavily in wards it was trying to defend.
At the same time, some voters seemingly voted for whichever party was best placed to defeat the Conservatives locally. Labour's support increased most (at the expense of the Liberal Democrats) in wards where they started off second to the Conservatives, while the Liberal Democrats advanced most (and Labour did less well) in wards where were the principal challengers locally.
Indeed, it is these two patterns that help explain why the Conservative Party lost nearly one in two of the council seats it was trying to defend. Conservative MPs would be unwise to assume that the same fate could not also befall them.
Sir John Curtice is Professor of Politics, University of Strathclyde, and Senior Fellow, National Centre for Social Research and 'The UK in a Changing Europe'. He is also co-host of the Trendy podcast. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68964302 |
Eurovision hopefuls put on the style in Malmo - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The world's biggest song contest reaches its finale on Saturday and contestants have arrived in style. | Entertainment & Arts | The final of this year's Eurovision Song Contest may not be until next weekend but contestants have already been putting on the style for the event's official opening in Malmo. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68962827 |
Behind-scenes NHS problems leave new doctors without jobs - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The NHS needs more doctors so why have some medical students been left in limbo waiting for a job? | Health | Emma is graduating from medical school this year
The NHS needs more doctors, and this year saw a record number of applications from medical students to start junior doctor training. But problems behind the scenes have meant many have not yet been found jobs. What has gone wrong?
When the email of congratulations arrived in her inbox last month, Emma could not have been any more excited. Inside was meant to be the details of her first job as a junior doctor.
On the brink of graduation from Warwick Medical School, the 29-year-old was due to find out about where she would working for the next two years.
But despite the email being titled congratulations, next to each of her placements for her two-year foundation course, the first rung on the doctor training ladder, was the abbreviation TBC.
Emma's email did not confirm where she would be working
She had been given what is called a placeholder job. "I've been told I will have a job, but that they don't know where yet and it could take until three weeks before I am due to start in August for me to find out. All I know is it will be somewhere in the West Midlands South region.
"It is incredibly unsettling. It makes you feel unvalued and an inconvenience. The NHS is short of doctors and yet they cannot find me a job.
"I am renting at the moment, but depending on where I am placed I may have to give notice to my landlord and move."
Emma was one of more than 1,000 medical students in this position when the emails initially went out. That was nearly one in nine of those who have applied to start junior doctor training this summer.
Since then the numbers have dropped to 800 as NHS trusts have created new roles and some students have already decided not to take up their place.
Part of the problem is that there has been an increase in medical students this summer to start junior doctor training, with just over 9,700 accepted by the UK Foundation Programme, up from 8,655 in 2023.
Some of these will have come from abroad, and under immigration rules the NHS cannot prioritise UK-trained students.
The increase is welcome given the need to train more doctors, with the government in England aiming to double the number of medical student places by 2031.
But it has meant NHS trusts have struggled to keep up and ensure they have enough training posts for new graduates.
The British Medical Association has this week written to the health secretary to warn it is "exceedingly concerned" about the placeholder situation, after being inundated with complaints from worried medical students.
Its letter says many are reporting they may only be told where they will be three weeks before their August start date, when work schedules are meant to be confirmed at least eight weeks in advance.
All they know is what part of the UK they are going to be working in after being allocated to one of 18 foundation school areas in March.
Some cover very large areas. There is one each for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, while in England, one covers the whole of Yorkshire and Humber.
Medical students have also had to cope with a change in the way their regions are allocated. As part of the process, they have to list each foundation school in order of preference.
Previously people were allocated according to merit - with each student ranked according to how they had performed during their studies and in an application test.
But this year that has changed and has been done randomly. The logic behind it was that the previous system was stressful for students and was particularly unfair on those from deprived backgrounds and ethnic minorities. They tended to perform less well, and therefore were more likely to be posted to regions they did not favour, according to the UK Foundation Programme.
However, overall it has resulted in more students not ending up with one of their top five choices - more than 730 compared to just over 430 last year.
BMA medical students committee deputy chairman Rob Tucker says while students understood the logic behind changing the system, he feels "something has gone wrong" given what has happened.
"Students feel like they are in a lottery. It all depends what number the computer algorithm spits out."
And he is worried it will lead to more people dropping out and not progressing on to the next stage of training.
"Having more students with their bottom choices, and so many with placeholder jobs, increases the chances of more medical students walking away.
"It's very hard if you end up in a part of the country you don't want to work [in] and then if you don't know where you are going to work in that particular region until as little as a few weeks before you start, that's not fair.
"It costs a lot of money to train a doctor. It's good value if they work for the NHS for 30 or 40 years, but not if you lose them straight away."
There is sympathy for their plight among those running the system.
Speaking at the Royal College of Physicians annual conference last month, North London Foundation School deputy director Dr Celia Bielawski said the deaneries were working hard with NHS trusts to create the new junior doctor posts needed.
"We have an increasing number of international medical graduates applying for foundation training every year, and the government is very keen that we should take these doctors as we need to train up additional doctors to go up through the ranks.
"At the moment we don't have places for all of them, but we are all actively working, creating additional posts and I'm confident that they will all be placed.
"We have to get trusts to agree to take them, that's one of the fundamental issues and bottlenecks with all of this. But we'll get there, I am sure."
Prof Sheona Macleod, director of education and training at NHS England, is confident the situation will be resolved too, saying: "We will get there because we've committed to finding them a post."
But she also pointed out that under the previous system, medical students could still find themselves without a job initially as some would be placed on a national reserve list after the first round of job offers.
"We have made sure people know where they are going, as in what region, which is different to the past."
But she added: "The numbers have meant that the anxiety for the students looking at finding places hasn't gone away and we're very aware of it." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68849847 |
US Army sergeant arrested in Russia accused of theft - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The sergeant, who was held on 2 May, is accused of stealing from a woman, reports the BBC's partner CBS. | US & Canada | A US Army soldier stationed in South Korea has been detained in Russia, the US military says.
The Russian foreign ministry said the charges were not related to "politics or espionage", but to a "purely domestic crime".
The 34-year-old was not on official travel when he was held on 2 May in the city of Vladivostok, in Russia's Far East.
Sgt Black had been in the process of changing duty stations from South Korea to Fort Cavazos in the US state of Texas, according to a statement from the US Army.
But instead of returning to the US, he travelled through China to Vladivostok for personal reasons, US Army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said in a statement.
According to Russian media, he was visiting a woman with whom he had a romantic relationship.
The soldier's mother, Melody Jones, confirmed to CBS that he was in Russia visiting his girlfriend.
"Please do not torture him [or] hurt him," Melody Jones said when asked about her message to the Russians.
Sgt Black enlisted as an infantryman in 2008 and was deployed to Iraq in 2009 and Afghanistan in 2013. He was most recently assigned to the Eighth Army, US Forces Korea at Camp Humphreys in South Korea.
He did not request official clearance and the defence department did not authorise his travel to China or Russia, the US Army said. There is no evidence he intended to remain in Russia.
The Russian interior ministry informed the US embassy in Moscow on 3 May that Sgt Black had been arrested a day earlier for theft of personal property.
He is being held at a pre-trial detention facility until his next hearing.
"The Army notified his family and the US Department of State is providing appropriate consular support to the Soldier in Russia," the US Army said in a statement on Monday.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters the US is "aware of this case and other matters related to Russia".
At the White House briefing on Monday, Mr Kirby said he could not provide more details.
Russia is holding two other Americans. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been detained since March 2023 on espionage charges.
Former US Marine Paul Whelan was accused of spying and sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020.
Both men maintain their innocence, and the US government says the charges against them are baseless. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68966860 |
Al Jazeera office raided as Israel takes channel off air - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The network denies being a threat to security, and says Israel wants "to cover up its crimes". | Middle East | Media equipment was seen being taken out of the Ambassador Hotel, where Al Jazeera's Jerusalem office is based
Israel's government has moved to shut down the operations of the Al Jazeera television network in the country, branding it a mouthpiece for Hamas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the cabinet agreed to the closure while the war in Gaza is ongoing.
Police raided the Qatari broadcaster's office at the Ambassador hotel in occupied East Jerusalem on Sunday.
Al Jazeera called claims it was a threat to Israeli security a "dangerous and ridiculous lie".
The channel said it reserved the right to "pursue every legal step".
Israel's Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi said equipment had been taken in the raid.
A video posted by the minister on X shows police officers and inspectors from the ministry entering a hotel room.
A BBC team visited the scene, but was prevented from filming or going into the hotel by police.
According to Reuters news agency, the Israeli satellite service Yes displayed a message that read: "In accordance with the government decision, the Al Jazeera station's broadcasts have been stopped in Israel."
The blockage is effectively only partial, however, as the channel is still accessible through Facebook in Israel.
The shut down of Al Jazeera in Israel has been criticised by a number of human rights and press groups.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) said they had filed a request to the country's Supreme Court to issue an interim order to overturn the ban.
The group said that claims that the broadcaster was a propaganda tool for Hamas were "unfounded", and that Sunday's ban was less about security concerns and more to "serve a more politically motivated agenda, aimed at silencing critical voices and targeting Arab media".
The Foreign Press Association (FPA) urged the Israeli government to reconsider its decision, saying the shut down of Al Jazeera in the country should be "a cause for concern for all supporters of a free press".
The FPA said in a statement that Israel now joins "a dubious club of authoritarian governments to ban the station", and warned that Mr Netanyahu has the authority to target other foreign outlets that he considers to be "acting against the state".
The Committee to Protect Journalists' (CPJ) Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna echoed the same concerns, saying: "The Israeli cabinet must allow Al Jazeera and all international media outlets to operate freely in Israel, especially during wartime."
The UN's Human Rights office also called the Israeli government to reverse the ban, posting on X: "A free & independent media is essential to ensuring transparency & accountability. Now, even more so given tight restrictions on reporting from Gaza."
Al Jazeera, which is headquartered in Qatar (pictured here), has condemned Israel's decision to shut its operations in Israel
Foreign journalists are banned from entering Gaza, and Al Jazeera staff there have been some of the only reporters on the ground.
For years, Israeli officials have accused the network of anti-Israeli bias.
Their criticisms of the broadcaster have intensified since the 7 October Hamas attacks on southern Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were taken hostage. Some 128 of those hostages are still unaccounted for, with at least 34 presumed dead.
At least 34,683 Palestinians have been killed and 78,018 injured in Israel's subsequent military campaign in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Last month, the Israeli parliament passed a law giving the government power to temporarily close foreign broadcasters considered a threat to national security during the war against Hamas.
Qatar, where Al Jazeera is headquartered, is mediating talks between Israel and Hamas over the now almost seven-month-long conflict.
Previous negotiations mediated by Qatar led to a temporary ceasefire and the release of 105 Israeli hostages in November.
Al Jazeera has accused Israel of deliberately targeting its staff.
Journalists including Hamza al-Dahdouh, the son of Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh, have been killed by Israeli strikes. Israel denies targeting journalists.
"Israel's suppression of free press to cover up its crimes by killing and arresting journalists has not deterred us from performing our duty," the network said in its response to Sunday's ban. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68961753 |
'Work to do' after local election losses - Rishi Sunak - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Rejecting calls to change course, the PM says he can make "progress" with voters before a general election. | UK Politics | Rishi Sunak has dismissed calls to change course after poor local election results, arguing he can make "progress" with voters before a general election.
Speaking for the first time since the full scale of Tory losses was revealed, the prime minister called losing 470 councillors "bitterly disappointing".
Tory critics have called on Mr Sunak to shift the party to the right.
But Mr Sunak told The Times newspaper he was "determined that we will come together as a party".
The Conservatives are licking their wounds after a string of local election defeats. After the final votes were counted on Sunday, the Tories had lost control of 10 councils, more than 470 council seats and a totemic loss of West Midlands mayor Andy Street.
The party also lost 10 Police and Crime Commissioners to Labour, marking a potentially significant blow for the Conservatives if they aim to centre their next general election campaign on law and order.
Appearing to concede for the first time that his party could be on course to lose its majority, Mr Sunak said the local election results "suggest we are heading for a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party".
The prime minister told The Times: "Keir Starmer propped up in Downing Street by the SNP, Liberal Democrats and the Greens would be a disaster for Britain.
"The country does not need more political horse trading, but action."
He added: "There is work to do and more progress to be made and I am determined that we will come together as a party and show the British people we are delivering for them."
His comments reflect analysis by leading psephologist Prof Michael Thrasher for Sky News - which suggested Labour would win 294 seats at a general election.
The projection, which has been dismissed by some polling experts, used the local election results to project a nationwide estimate of vote share at a general election.
It assumes everyone would vote in the same way at a general election as they did in last week's local elections, when smaller parties and independent candidates tend to do better in local elections.
It also does not take account of what could happen in Scotland, instead using the results of the 2019 general election, while Labour are expected to do much better there this year.
Polling expert Prof Sir John Curtice said winning more seats in Scotland on its own probably would not be enough to secure a majority for Labour.
However, he told the BBC the impact of Reform UK was "diminished" in the local elections as they only stood in one in six wards.
Where they did stand, the Conservative vote fell significantly, suggesting the party could have a greater impact in a general election, where they have pledged to field candidates in every seat across England, Scotland and Wales.
Health Minister Maria Caulfield acknowledged there were "caveats" around the projection.
However, she claimed last week's results showed former Conservative voters were staying at home, rather than switching to Labour, and "they want a reason to vote for us".
Labour has denied it is planning alliances with other parties in order to form a government at the next general election, expected in the second half of this year.
Speaking on BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Labour's election co-ordination Pat McFadden said there was now a "sense of belief" that his party could win.
He hailed the "tremendous" election results for the party, especially winning the West Midlands mayoral race which he said was "beyond our expectations".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Braverman says she regrets backing Sunak for PM
Speaking on Sunday, former Home Secretary Suella Braverman said Mr Sunak's plan was "not working".
"There is no disguising the fact these have been terrible election results for the Conservatives," Mrs Braverman told the BBC.
Mr Sunak must "change course" towards more right-wing policies in order to win back Tory voters who are "on strike", she added.
Although a frequent critic of the prime minister, Mrs Braverman did not call for Mr Sunak's replacement, arguing it would be "impossible" to change leaders so close to a general election.
Mrs Braverman is among several conservative voices who have come out to advocate for a rightward policy shift in light of the bleak local election results.
Miriam Cates, co-chair of the New Conservatives group mostly made up of "red wall" MPs, from the party's 2019 intake, said her party must offer "patriotism and national security" to avoid falling into the "abyss".
Writing in the Telegraph, Ms Cates called on Mr Sunak to ignore policies that "serve an international elite" and instead focus on drastically reducing immigration and reforming planning laws to boost house-building.
Former lead Brexit negotiator Lord David Frost said he believed it was "too late" to save the Conservative Party from "electoral defeat at the next general election".
To save the party Mr Sunak must produce "more tax cuts, more spending cuts" and a "serious assault on the burden of net zero", Lord Frost argued.
However, Damian Green, chairman of the centrist One Nation Group of Conservative MPs, said "suggesting that what we need to do is to move to the right is irrational in the face of the electorate".
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour, the former first secretary said: "I would just observe the seats that we have lost in the past few days - we lost to parties to the left of us."
Conservative Party chairman Richard Holden told the same programme that voters wanted the party to put forward a "clear vision for the country".
"I think it is self-indulgent for us to be talking to ourselves and talking about ourselves at the moment," he said. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68963221 |
French bakers beat world record for longest baguette - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | null | A 140.5m (461ft)-long baguette baked in the Parisian suburbs has beaten a previous record from Italy in 2019. | null | French bakers set a new Guinness World Record on Sunday when they made a 140.5m (461ft)-long baguette in Suresnes, in the suburbs of Paris.
The massive baguette beat a 132.62m (435ft) mega loaf baked in the Italian city of Como in 2019, which set the previous world record.
Part of the baguette was shared with the French public and given to homeless people. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68962680 |
Trump hush-money trial: Trump lawyer calls for mistrial over Stormy Daniels' testimony - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The adult-film star is testifying about an alleged sexual encounter with Donald Trump - which he denies. | US & Canada | Thanks for joining our live coverage on an extraordinary day in court, with adult-film star Stormy Daniels taking the stand.
It was a tense courtroom, with Daniels warned to dial back her comments at times. Prosecutors were also told to limit their questions regarding the salacious details of her alleged sexual encounter with Trump (which Trump has denied ever took place).
Here's our full wrap of what happened in court today.
This page was edited by Tiffany Wertheimer, Lisa Lambert, Brandon Livesay and Phil McCausland. The writers were Sam Hancock and Sean Seddon, and we had Madeline Halpert and Kayla Epstein in court.
Court doesn't sit on Wednesday, so we'll be back on Thursday, when Stormy Daniels will once again take to the stand to continue her testimony. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-68955286 |
Romance fraudster defrauded women of £80,000 - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Peter Gray, from West Yorkshire, took out loans in the names of women he met on dating app Tinder. | Leeds & West Yorkshire | Peter Gray applied for loans using personal information that he stole from the women
A group of women are warning others to do background checks on partners met through dating apps after loans worth thousands of pounds were taken out in their names by the same conman.
Peter Gray, 35, who met the women on Tinder, was jailed after defrauding four women out of about £80,000.
One victim said Gray, from West Yorkshire, "totally ruined my life" and left her with significant trust issues.
Tinder said it had "implemented various ways to warn users of potential scams".
Gray, of Mirfield, was sentenced to 56 months in prison in February and given restraining orders in relation to the victims.
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live's Clare McDonnell, Jessica - not her real name - described how she met Gray on the app in 2018 after coming out of a six-year relationship.
Although he wasn't her usual type, he was "a good listener and everything I needed at the time", she recalled.
On their third date, Jessica was at his apartment and got up to use the bathroom.
"I left my bag on his dining table, he went in my bag and took pictures of my driving licence and both my bank cards," she said.
She later discovered loans up to the value of £9,000 were taken out in her name.
Gray developed close connections that would help him commit offences for his own personal financial gain
Despite Gray offering to pay back the money over time, Jessica went to the police.
"I didn't want to be tied to this guy for five years because I barely even knew him," she said.
Hannah, another woman who met Gray on Tinder, described him as being initially "calming and reassuring," but something "didn't sit right".
A week later, after Hannah decided to call the relationship off, she received an acceptance letter for a loan of £20,000 in her name.
The pair rekindled their relationship a few months later after Gray showered her with gifts and declarations of love, however she later ended it once again.
"I think the alarm bells and red flags were just waving high," she said.
Across all of the relationships, Gray developed close connections that would help him commit offences for his own personal financial gain.
When Hannah found out she was pregnant, her sister looked into Gray's past and tracked down one of his ex-partners, who warned her of his hidden past.
"There's no way that I'm going to let a child be brought up anywhere near such a vile human," Hannah said.
"My world had just literally broken apart in front of my eyes in that half an hour conversation."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Victim Hannah and sister Natalie, told BBC 5 Live of their reaction to the experience
Gray repeated the pattern once again when he matched with Elizabeth - not her real name - in 2020.
He sent flowers to her home, despite Elizabeth never revealing where she lived.
Elizabeth said: "Red flags popped up, but I just kept thinking, stop being silly, you need to be going for a guy that treats you nice."
Two days before moving into her new house, Elizabeth's mortgage was pulled after Gray used her driving licence to secure a loan of about £10,000 in her name.
Jessica said Gray's actions had "totally ruined my life" and said she's stopped taking ID and bank cards out on dates.
"I don't trust anybody I meet," she said.
Elizabeth said: "You're constantly thinking, is this person who they say they are or are they not?"
Two of the women individually used the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme, also known as Clare's Law, which gives people the right to ask police for a background check on their partner.
In a statement, Tinder says it has "implemented various ways to warn users of potential scams"
In a statement, Tinder said it "acts to help prevent and warn users of potential scams or fraud by using AI tools to detect words and phrases and proactively intervene".
"We have implemented various ways to warn users of potential scams or fraud, from in-app features to pop-up messages and education," a spokesperson said.
"All users can request that their match be photo-verified prior to messaging. We also partner with non-governmental organizations and local authorities to promote awareness of online fraud."
You can hear the full interviews on BBC Radio 5 Live on Bank Holiday Monday, or listen to the 5MinsOn podcast 'The Women Conned By A Romance Fraudster' on BBC Sounds.
Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-68942415 |
Legoland Windsor: Police probe baby's cardiac arrest at theme park - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A woman is arrested on suspicion of neglecting a five-month-old boy who is in a critical condition. | Berkshire | The baby suffered a cardiac arrest at the theme park on Thursday
A woman has been arrested on suspicion of neglecting a five-month-old boy who suffered a cardiac arrest at a theme park.
The baby is in a critical condition in hospital following the incident at Legoland Windsor at about 13:00 BST on Thursday, police said.
A 27-year-old woman from Witham, Essex, was arrested on suspicion of neglecting a child to cause unnecessary injury.
She has been released on bail until 26 July.
Det Con Zoe Eele, of Thames Valley Police's Child Abuse Investigation Unit, said: "Firstly, our thoughts are with the family of the boy who is in a critical condition in hospital after suffering a cardiac arrest.
"We are working closely with the team at Legoland Windsor Resort but would like to speak to anyone who have information about this incident, specifically anyone who was queueing for the Coastguard HQ boat ride between around 11.30am and 12:45pm.
"I would ask for the public to please avoid speculation about the incident and to respect the boy's family at this deeply upsetting time."
Police said they are not looking for further suspects in relation to the incident.
In a statement, the theme park said: "On Thursday, a young guest was taken ill... and our fully trained First Aid team administered immediate care until the emergency services arrived.
"We will continue to support Thames Valley Police with their ongoing investigation."
Follow BBC South on Facebook, X, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk or via WhatsApp on 0808 100 2240.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-68962869 |
Victoria Station: Families' safety plea as third woman hit by bus - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A woman is left with life-threatening injuries after she was hit by a bus at the same station where two women were previously killed. | London | Melissa Burr, 32, and Catherine Finnegan, 56, died in separate incidents at Victoria Station
The families of two women killed at a central London bus station have called for change after another woman was seriously injured.
She remains in a life-threatening condition after a double-decker bus struck her outside Victoria Station.
Relatives of Catherine Finnegan and Melissa Burr said the area should be closed and "made safe for pedestrians".
Transport for London (TfL) said work to improve safety was carried out last year.
It said it would work with police "to see if additional safety improvements are needed".
In a joint statement, their families said they were "devastated to hear of another serious incident near Victoria Station".
"Our thoughts and prayers are with the victim of this bus crash. We are calling on the Mayor of London and Transport for London to close this area until it is made safe for pedestrians."
The statement said the news had been "very upsetting for both families", and that "clearly change is needed".
Transport for London's head of buses, Tom Cunnington, said all three incidents were "distressing for everyone involved".
"Our thoughts remain with the people who have been killed and seriously injured after collisions in Victoria," he said, adding support had been made available for those affected.
"Last year, we carried out works to Victoria Bus Station to improve pedestrian safety.
"We will support the police with their enquiries into the causes of the incident near to the station on Friday to see if additional safety improvements are needed.
"Safety is our utmost priority in all that we do and we're determined that it will continue to be at the heart of our transport network."
Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68961448 |
Rylan Clark and Rob Rinder: ‘The tour that helped mend our broken hearts’ - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | After their divorces, the presenters found a life-changing trip helped them move on with their lives. | Entertainment & Arts | Having both faced the break-up of their marriages in recent years, presenters Rylan Clark and Rob Rinder found a life-changing tour the inspiration they needed to move on with their lives.
"This trip is part of my restart in life," says Rylan Clark positively.
With close friend and travelling companion, Rob Rinder, he has embarked on a tour of Italy for a new BBC Two series, retracing the steps of the Grand Tourists of the past.
"We've both been through painful divorces recently and are ready for the next chapter," says Clark, who rose to fame on the X Factor and has since become a popular TV and radio presenter.
The Grand Tour, the original gap year, was a rite of passage for the young male nobility of the 18th Century, who would travel to Europe to discover its culture, architecture - and themselves.
In the series, Clark and Rinder, who share the same divorce lawyer, travelled to Venice, Florence and Rome following in the footsteps of one of the most famous of Grand Tourists, romantic poet Lord Byron, on the 200th anniversary of his death.
Clark and Rinder travelled first to Venice, known as the city of love
Byron - like Clark and Rinder - was also in the public eye and divorced. He journeyed to Italy to escape from the mounting pressure of life. It's something Clark can identify with. The culmination of his marriage breaking down after six years, and the knock-on effect of stopping work for the first time in 10 years, sent Clark into a "downward spiral", he says.
"I tried to finish myself off. I didn't eat. I went down to 9 stone (57kg). I'm 6ft 4in (1.9m), I looked horrendous," he says.
Grateful for everything he has built, having grown up in a council house in Stepney Green, east London, with not very much, Clark says he would give it all up not to have put his mother, Linda, through the trauma of that difficult time.
"She's a 70-year-old woman and she had to watch her successful son literally disintegrate."
He adds that starting afresh - going out on dates when you're in the public eye - brings with it its own difficulties.
"I always thought when I was younger, imagine being known, you'd probably be able to get anyone you want. It's the complete opposite," he says.
Clark and Rinder visited the Colosseum, a Roman amphitheatre where gladiators would do battle
Rinder, a criminal barrister who rose to prominence as a TV judge, had been with his partner for 11 years, but his relationship broke down four years into their marriage.
For him, one of the hardest things to do is live in the moment, rather than in his head.
"Recently, I went on a date and I thought it had gone rather well, and he said, 'Well I did rather feel like I was being cross-examined'," he says.
"I'm one of life's great overthinkers, it stops me doing everything. It stops me finding joy, it stops me taking risks."
On his arrival in Italy, Byron fell in love. Like the original tourists on the Grand Tour, Rinder and Clark met up with prospective love interests too, taking themselves out of their comfort zone to date Venetian men. But they also studied the art, architecture and culture of the historic Italian cities.
"I wouldn't say I know a lot about art," says Clark. "I come from quite a working-class background and art wasn't the thing that we had hanging up in our houses. It would be fake chandeliers from down the market - that was our family heirlooms."
Rinder comes from a working-class background too and was brought up by his single-parent mother.
"Opera wasn't on the buffet - or ballet or books," he says. "Really for me, education - be it in the music or the arts - it was the way out."
Although Rinder has studied art, the Grand Tour was not just about him educating Clark, but Clark educating him, he says.
"Every painting we've looked at, some of which I've seen multiple times, he's found something new and beautiful in it," he says.
The presenters experimented with some of the fashion of the day
For Clark, the tour has given him the confidence to not feel intimidated to talk about art any more. He has made no secret, he says, of the fact he didn't have that much confidence in himself.
Just as carnival guests in Venice would wear masks to conceal their identities, Clark says he too wears a mask every day in the form of make-up.
"I'm very much two people," says Clark. "So everyone knows me as Rylan - has a laugh, big teeth, wears a bit of make-up - a lot of make-up - and is just that presenter off the telly - or that idiot off the telly.
"Whereas actually at home, I'm Ross. Ross is who I grew up as, Rylan's my job. Ross is the one that sits at home with a tracksuit on and a Peroni in the hand, so I am very different."
He says the make-up he wears is his suit of armour.
"So you can take the piss out of my teeth, you can say I look orange, but at the end of the day when I wipe it all off, Ross isn't bruised, Rylan takes the battering, that's how I deal with it."
For Clark, who loves design and says he wanted to be an architect growing up, the trip has given him the chance to redefine himself.
"When you're 'something', people want you to be that 'something' and stay in your lane, sometimes it's nice to indicate, slip over," he says.
It does feel like he and Rinder have had a renaissance of their own on the trip.
"I've got no limits now, nothing fazes me," says Clark. "I'm willing to try anything - or anyone."
"I'm 34 and I'm young enough to start again when it comes down to my personal life."
The experience has been just as liberating for Rinder.
"I feel like I've learnt living life can't just be in books, it's got to be real," he says.
"You can't write about love, or paint about it, unless you've done it."
Rob and Rylan's Grand Tour starts on Sunday 12 May at 21:00 BST on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer.
If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this story, support and advice is available via the BBC Action Line | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68932989 |
The moment pastor survives shooting attempt during sermon - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | null | Pennsylvania pastor Glenn Germany escaped injury when gunman's firearm failed to discharge. | null | A gunman attempted to shoot pastor Glenn Germany during his sermon at Jesus' Dwelling Place Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Sunday.
Officials identified the gunman as 26-year-old Bernard Polite. Mr Germany escaped with his life because Mr Polite's firearm failed to discharge.
After Mr Polite's arrest, police found another man fatally shot at his North Braddock home. The victim was identified as Derek Polite, 56. Police have not yet commented on Bernard Polite's relationship with him. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68924801 |
Coronation anniversary marked by 41-gun salute - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | null | It's one year since King Charles and Queen Camilla were crowned in a lavish, historic ceremony. | null | Military celebrations in London marked the first anniversary of the coronation of the King and Queen.
The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery fired a 41-Gun Royal Salute for King Charles and Queen Camilla outside Buckingham Palace. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68964598 |
London mayor election: How Sadiq Khan won over London for the third time - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The Labour candidate clinched a third-successive term as mayor of London - but what next? | London | Labour's Sadiq Khan secured a third term as the Mayor of London after receiving more than a million votes
For Sadiq Khan the worst fears did not materialise.
His record third mayoral victory came after the threat of a Tory surge in the suburbs simply evaporated. Mr Khan's winning margin was 275,000 votes and his 44% share equalled what he achieved in 2016.
Yet there was bitterness in his victory speech, condemning the "non-stop negativity" of his Tory opponent. The campaign appears to have taken its toll.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Sadiq Khan calls third term as London mayor 'honour of my life'
In a contest criticised by some London media as lacklustre and without energy, Mr Khan's safety-first strategy prevailed.
His promise of a "safer, fairer and greener" capital brought out his own supporters and also looks to have succeeded in persuading Green and Liberal Democrat voters to "lend" their support to him in the mayoralty while voting for their natural choices for the London Assembly.
This was evident in south-west London where the Lib Dems won their first ever constituency Assembly seat - but Mr Khan comfortably out-polled Ms Hall.
There was relief in the Labour camp after a campaign where it did not appear easy for Mr Khan to defend his record.
Official figures published a week from polling day showed knife crime offences in the capital up 20% in the last year. Over eight years the increase was greater still.
Then 48 hours before polling day, there was widespread shock and revulsion at the death of 14-year-old Daniel Anjorin - killed in a sword attack in Hainault.
Some thought it might have an impact on the election.
Among other pledges Mr Khan offered a fresh commitment to build 40,000 new council homes by the end of the decade - note, not the end of the next four-year mayoral term.
There was a big price tag attached to his central "retail" offer.
The government already funds free school lunches for the majority of primary school pupils but Mr Khan's extension of this to seven-to-11-year-olds not currently entitled for the next four years will cost well over £1bn.
Sadiq Khan's pledge to continue free school lunches for older primary school children for four more years will cost more than £500m
He also decided to freeze many transport fares this year, though with no guarantee beyond that. Voters apparently rejected his opponents' attempts to present this as an irresponsible pre-election gimmick.
Mr Khan's victory shows he successfully navigated the biggest controversy of his mayoralty so far - charging the motorists of polluting vehicles through the expanded Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) to cover all of the London boroughs.
In the anti-Ulez heartland of Bexley and Bromley, Ms Hall's attempt to gain ground were thwarted by nearly 10,000 votes won by Reform UK's Howard Cox.
A year ago, the mayor published a book heralding his focus on the environment and cleaning up London's air.
Attending last year's UN climate conference in New York he claimed to be "educating" people and taking them with him on the journey to Net Zero carbon emissions by 2030.
Previously, Sadiq Khan called the Ulez expansion "necessary and effective" for London
It looked then as if tackling traffic congestion, air quality and climate change might form the centrepiece of a radical vision of a third term. That seemed clearly to be what he had hoped would be his legacy.
Then the brakes were applied after the dramatic loss of political capital he had experienced over the Ulez expansion.
That was something his own independent experts advised would not shift the dial in terms of improving air quality, and it enraged sections of outer London and led to Labour's failure to win the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election last July.
That setback was not repeated when Londoners were asked to choose this time.
Environmental groups heralded Mr Khan's win as a victory for clean air. However, he may now be hamstrung by the limited pledges he ended up making.
In his book he talked about pursuing a new system of road-user charging which would take into account the distance, time and emissions of journeys.
Sadiq Khan won nine of the 14 constituencies including two gains from the Tories
Under heavy fire from his Tory opponent, claiming he had secret plans for a "pay-per-mile" hit on the motorist, he rowed back sharply.
He told Transport for London (TfL) to stop all work on it and was forced explicitly to rule it out in his manifesto.
At tightly-controlled events on his campaign trail, he was joined by prominent members of the shadow cabinet including Rachel Reeves and Yvette Cooper.
Energy spokesman and former Labour leader Ed Miliband was deployed to attack the Tory candidate over climate change while embattled deputy leader Angela Rayner joined Sadiq Khan to launch his manifesto.
It cemented the idea of future partnership and support, but there was notably no pledge of extra money, pleas for which have been a recurring feature of Sadiq Khan's mayoralty so far.
Central to Sadiq Khan's campaign was a claim there was a "moment of maximum opportunity" where Londoners could soon have a Labour mayor and Labour government working in tandem.
The first stage has now happened.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan with Labour Party deputy leader Angela Rayner, following a policy announcement during his speech at the Design District in Greenwich
Apparently relaxed about the polling signals and the weakness of his Conservative opponent, he ran a careful campaign.
Keen to avoid the slightest chance of encountering protest or hostility on the street, over the full six weeks Mr Khan had no spontaneous or unplanned interaction with members of the public witnessed by the media.
Towards the end there were signs of nervousness the safety-first strategy may have backfired by failing to energise Labour supporters.
There were further signs of edginess when with days to go he apologised to the Chief Rabbi for an interview - given to a US-based journalist - in which he claimed he was treated differently than Andy Burnham over their stance on a ceasefire because he was Muslim.
Mr Khan is very familiar with his Tory opponent Ms Hall having clashed regularly with the London Assembly member at City Hall over the past eight years.
Tory candidate Susan Hall secured just over 811,000 votes making up 32.7% share of the overall vote
That may have informed his decision to minimise face-to-face contact during the campaign. He would not say her name.
The pair debated three times in a broadcast studio and only once at a public hustings. Neither attended around a dozen other hustings, to the anger of some of the organisers.
For the first time there was no "second preference" vote for the mayor.
Mr Khan claimed the government had changed to make it easier to dislodge him, but it failed.
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Israel-Gaza war: Four soldiers killed in Kerem Shalom rocket attack - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Israel's military said early on Monday it was urging Gazans sheltering in parts of Rafah to move. | Middle East | The armed wing of Hamas said it was responsible for rocket fire in the Kerem Shalom border area. (Pictured: An Israeli medic after the attack)
Four Israeli soldiers have been killed in a Hamas rocket attack near one of the main crossings used to deliver aid into Gaza, Israel has said.
The Kerem Shalom crossing was closed overnight by Israel following the strike.
Subsequent Israeli strikes in the southern Gazan city of Rafah have reportedly killed at least 12 people.
Israel's military said early on Monday it was urging Gazans sheltering in parts of Rafah to evacuate.
It comes as talks aimed at securing a ceasefire deal in Gaza and the release of hostages have stalled.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said 10 projectiles had been fired from an area near the Rafah crossing in southern Gaza, about 3.6km (2.2 miles) from Kerem Shalom.
Hamas's armed wing claimed responsibility and said its target was a nearby Israeli army base.
They were fired from a site some 350m from a civilian shelter, the IDF said
It called the launches "another clear example of the terrorist organisation's systematic exploitation of humanitarian facilities and spaces, and their continued use of the Gazan civilian population as human shields".
Hamas denies it uses civilians as human shields.
The Israeli military confirmed a counter-strike in Rafah, saying it struck the launcher from which the projectiles were fired and a nearby military structure.
There were two Israeli strikes on Sunday, killing at least 12 people according to Gaza health officials.
The latest violence follows two days of talks with mediators in Cairo, Egypt.
There has been little progress, with both Israel and Hamas saying they will not give ground on key demands, but discussions are expected to resume on Monday.
Hamas said its delegation would travel to Qatar to consult with the group's leadership.
CIA chief William Burns, who has also been involved in mediation efforts, has left the Egyptian capital for talks in Doha, according to reports.
The truce proposal is believed to involve a 40-day pause in fighting, allowing the release of hostages in Gaza and a number of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails.
Hamas said it viewed the current proposal in a "positive light", but the main sticking point appears to be whether the ceasefire deal would be permanent or temporary.
The group is insisting any deal makes a specific commitment towards an end to the war, but Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected that on Sunday.
"The state of Israel cannot accept this [Hamas's demands], we are not prepared to accept a situation in which the Hamas brigades come out of their bunkers, take control of Gaza again, rebuild their military infrastructure, and return to threatening the citizens of Israel in the settlements surrounding the southern mountains, in all parts of the country.
"This will be a terrible defeat for the state of Israel," he added.
The war began after waves of Hamas gunmen stormed across Gaza's border into Israel on 7 October, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages. The group is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by many Western countries.
During the subsequent Israeli military campaign in Gaza, more than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed and over 77,900 wounded, according to figures from the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
Mr Netanyahu has faced pressure from within his far-right coalition to press ahead with the long-promised offensive in Gaza's southern-most city, Rafah, where an estimated 1.4 million people have taken shelter after fleeing fighting in northern and central parts of the strip.
The US is reluctant to back a military operation that could cause significant civilian casualties, and has insisted on seeing a plan to protect displaced Palestinians first.
Early on Monday, the IDF said it was encouraging residents in Rafah's eastern neighbourhoods to make their way toward an "expanded humanitarian zone."
"The expanded humanitarian zone includes field hospitals, tents and increased amounts of food, water, medicine and other supplies.
"In accordance with the approval of the government, an ongoing situation assessment will guide the gradual movement of civilians in the specified areas in eastern Rafah, to the humanitarian area," a statement posted to X, formerly Twitter, read.
Seven months into its offensive against Hamas, Israel has said that victory is impossible without taking Rafah.
But with more than more than 1.4 million displaced Palestinians sheltering there, Western powers and neighbouring Egypt have raised fears that there could be high numbers of civilian casualties.
Update 7 May 2024: The number of soldiers killed in the Hamas rocket attack has been updated in this article from three to four. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68960585 |
Rwanda won't guarantee how many migrants it will take from UK - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Government spokesperson Yolande Maloko also feels Rwanda has been "attacked unjustly". | UK Politics | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Rwanda can't guarantee number of migrants it will take - spokesperson
The Rwandan government won't guarantee how many migrants it can take from the UK if flights start to depart.
Rishi Sunak has promised that migrants arriving in the UK without permission will be sent to Rwanda rather than allowed to claim asylum in the UK.
Around 52,000 have come to the UK since the law was changed in 2023 and are in line for deportation.
Rwanda has signed a five-year deal with the UK, with costs estimated to be at least £300 million already.
Last month the prime minister's plans for the UK to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda passed Parliament.
Speaking on 22 April, Mr Sunak said the first flight to Rwanda would leave in 10 to 12 weeks. Previously, the government said it aimed to start the flights in spring.
Mr Sunak said there would be "multiple flights a month through the summer and beyond".
When Parliament approved the legislation, according to Home Office there were 52,000 asylum seekers who could potentially be sent to Rwanda.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The PM says there is a "loud minority" who will try to stop government plans to send those seeking migrants to Rwanda.
But, speaking on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Rwanda's government spokesperson Yolande Maloko said: "I cannot tell you is how many thousands we're taking in the first year or in the second year."
But, when asked if Rwanda could accommodate all of the people in the current backlog.
"This will depend on very many factors that are being worked out now," Ms Maloko said.
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Pressed to give a commitment on the number that could be given homes in Rwanda Ms Makolo said "we are ready".
But, she would not give an assurance it would be able to take the 52,000 people the UK would like to send, merely saying it would be "thousands".
Ministers have said repeatedly they want the notion of being sent to Rwanda to be a deterrent for those trying to come to the UK.
But, Ms Makolo said Rwanda had been "attacked unjustly".
"Living in Rwanda is not a punishment. It is a beautiful country, including the weather," she added.
Transport Secretary Mark Harper also appeared on the show and was asked whether the UK government has a back-up plan.
Although he didn't answer directly, Mr Harper said the government has a "plan to start flights going in 10 to 12 weeks that is being worked on by the Home Office".
Mr Harper added: "We want a steady rhythm of flights going to Rwanda through this year.
"We will continue working closely with Rwanda on the partnership agreement we have got that has got all of the safeguards in place that people want to see.
"I think if you can set up a system of deterrent through those flights you will break the business model of the organised crime groups who traffic people across the very dangerous waterway of the English Channel."
Labour's Pat McFadden told the programme he thinks the government will succeed in getting flights running to Rwanda but believes it won't fix the migration problem or be value for money.
He declined to scrap the scheme on the the first day of a Labour government, should it win the next general election, but reiterated the party does not want to continue with Mr Sunak's policy.
Mr McFadden also said he doubted Labour would work to return any asylum seekers back to the UK.
Separately, Ms Makolo denied Rwandan involvement in the bombing of a displacement camp in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
At least nine people, including seven children, were killed in the strike on the Mugunga camp in the eastern city of Goma on Friday.
The US has blamed the Rwandan army and M23 rebel group.
Ms Makolo said the US government had been "very hasty to blame us without looking, without investigating this incident and without talking to the people who are affected.
"It's something that we outright reject and it's unfair," she added. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68961058 |
Israel sets out four issues with Hamas ceasefire offer as talks resume - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | An Israeli official says the proposal for a "permanent ceasefire" is among the problems, as a delegation arrives in Cairo. | Middle East | Gaza 'choked off' from aid, says UN humanitarian office
As we've been reporting, the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings - the key entry points for aid into Gaza - remain shut, cutting off aid deliveries into the Gaza Strip, the UN says. A spokesperson for the United Nations' humanitarian office, Jens Laerke, says both crossings fall within the evacuation zone, which means "the two main arteries for getting aid into Gaza are currently choked off". Israeli officials told the UN that there will be no crossings of personnel or goods in or out of the Rafah crossing "for the time being", Laerke says. Kerem Shalom crossing was closed after a rocket attack by Hamas fighters over the weekend killed four Israeli soldiers in the area. Hamas then targeted the crossing in another attack on Tuesday morning. Laerke adds that there is just one day of fuel left to sustain the UN's entire operation in Gaza. He also criticises Israel's evacuation notice, saying there was not enough warning to civilians and the UN was not informed before it warned Palestinians to evacuate eastern parts of Rafah ahead of the strikes. He adds there is no safe passage to the new humanitarian zone, and says that those on the ground have told him of "massive bombs lying in the street" in Khan Younis. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-68963839 |
Lord of the Rings and Hobbit creator centre of new Barnsley exhibition - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Barnsley Town Hall displays and soundscape will explore the magic of Tolkien's Middle-earth. | Sheffield & South Yorkshire | The exhibition explores Tolkien's work and his influence on other artists
Visitors to a South Yorkshire museum will be transported to J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth in a new exhibition.
The Magic of Middle-earth at Experience Barnsley Museum will include more than 200 objects and artworks, including a first edition of The Hobbit from 1937.
It will also explore Tolkien's influence on other writers, artists, filmmakers and game designers.
The free exhibition at the museum in Barnsley Town Hall runs from 30 September to April 2024.
Matt Fox, exhibition curator, said: "As a collector of rare objects and curious finds, I often have quite a solitary role.
"While I love what I do, being able to share my collections with likeminded individuals makes it all worth it.
"Bringing these specific pieces to Experience Barnsley Museum, to share with fans of The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit of all ages, is something that means a lot to me."
Highlights of the displays will include Middle-earth inspired video games and a soundscape.
It includes music by Howard Shore, who composed, orchestrated, conducted, and produced the music of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films.
Tolkien was an English writer and a professional colleague and friend of Barnsley-born educationalist Sir Michael Sadler in the 1920s.
During that time, as vice-chancellor at The University of Leeds, Sadler created the position of professor of English language especially for Tolkien.
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The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-66925448 |
North Korean weapons are killing Ukrainians. The implications are far bigger - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A missile that crashed in Kharkiv shows the surprising scale at which Pyongyang's weapons are used. | Asia | An unusual-looking wreckage that holds many clues
On 2 January, a young Ukrainian weapons inspector, Khrystyna Kimachuk, got word that an unusual-looking missile had crashed into a building in the city of Kharkiv. She began calling her contacts in the Ukrainian military, desperate to get her hands on it. Within a week, she had the mangled debris splayed out in front of her at a secure location in the capital Kyiv.
She began taking it apart and photographing every piece, including the screws and computer chips smaller than her fingernails. She could tell almost immediately this was not a Russian missile, but her challenge was to prove it.
Buried amidst the mess of metal and spouting wires, Ms Kimachuk spotted a tiny character from the Korean alphabet. Then she came across a more telling detail. The number 112 had been stamped onto parts of the shell. This corresponds to the year 2023 in the North Korean calendar. She realised she was looking at the first piece of hard evidence that North Korean weapons were being used to attack her country.
"We'd heard they had delivered some weapons to Russia, but I could see it, touch it, investigate it, in a way no-one had been able to do before. This was very exciting", she told me over the phone from Kyiv.
Since then, the Ukrainian military says dozens of North Korean missiles have been fired by Russia into its territory. They have killed at least 24 people and injured more than 70.
For all the recent talk of Kim Jong Un preparing to start a nuclear war, the more immediate threat is now North Korea's ability to fuel existing wars and feed global instability.
Ms Kimachuk works for Conflict Armament Research (CAR), an organisation that retrieves weapons used in war, to work out how they were made. But it wasn't until after she had finished photographing the wreckage of the missile and her team analysed its hundreds of components, that the most jaw-dropping revelation came.
It was bursting with the latest foreign technology. Most of the electronic parts had been manufactured in the US and Europe over the past few years. There was even a US computer chip made as recently as March 2023. This meant that North Korea had illicitly procured vital weapons components, snuck them into the country, assembled the missile, and shipped it to Russia in secret, where it had then been transported to the frontline and fired - all in a matter of months.
"This was the biggest surprise, that despite being under severe sanctions for almost two decades, North Korea is still managing to get its hands on all it needs to make its weapons, and with extraordinary speed," said Damien Spleeters, the deputy director at CAR.
Over in London, Joseph Byrne, a North Korea expert at the defence think tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), was equally stunned.
"I never thought I would see North Korean ballistic missiles being used to kill people on European soil," he said. He and his team at RUSI have been tracking the shipment of North Korean weapons to Russia ever since Mr Kim met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Russia in September of last year to strike a suspected arms deal.
Using satellite imagery, they have been able to observe four Russian cargo ships shuttling back and forth between North Korea and a Russian military port, loaded with hundreds of containers at a time.
In total RUSI estimates 7,000 containers have been sent, filled with more than a million ammunition shells and grad rockets - the sort that can be fired out of trucks in large volleys. Their assessments are backed up by intelligence from the US, UK and South Korea, though Russia and North Korea have denied the trade.
"These shells and rockets are some of the most sought-after things in the world today and are allowing Russia to keep pounding Ukrainian cities at a time when the US and Europe have been faltering over what weapons to contribute," Mr Byrne said.
But it is the arrival of ballistic missiles on the battlefield that has concerned Mr Byrne and his colleagues the most, because of what they reveal about North Korea's weapons programme.
Since the 1980s North Korea has sold its weapons abroad, largely to countries in the North Africa and the Middle East, including Libya, Syria and Iran. They have tended to be old, Soviet-style missiles with a poor reputation. There is evidence that Hamas fighters likely used some of Pyongyang's old rocket-propelled grenades in their attack last 7 October.
But the missile fired on 2 January, that Ms Kimachuk took apart, was seemingly Pyongyang's most sophisticated short-range missile - the Hwasong 11 - capable of travelling up to 700km (435 miles).
Although the Ukrainians have downplayed their accuracy, Dr Jeffrey Lewis, an expert in North Korean weapons and non-proliferation at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, says they appear to be not much worse than the Russian missiles.
The advantage of these missiles is that they are extremely cheap, explained Dr Lewis. This means you can buy more and fire more, in the hope of overwhelming air defences, which is exactly what the Russians appear to be doing.
This then raises the question of how many of these missiles the North Koreans can produce. The South Korean government recently observed North Korea has sent 6,700 containers of munitions to Russia, it says that Pyongyang's weapons factories were operating at full-tilt, and Dr Lewis, who has been studying these factories through satellites, reckons they can churn out a few hundred a year.
Still reeling from their discovery, Mr Spleeters and his team are now trying to work out how this is possible, given that companies are banned from selling parts to North Korea.
Many of the computer chips that are integral to modern weapons, that guide them through the air to their intended targets, are the same chips that are used to power our phones, washing machines and cars, Mr Spleeters explained.
These are being sold all over the world in staggering numbers. Manufacturers sell to distributors in their billions, who sell them on in their millions, meaning they often have no idea where their products end up.
Even so, Mr Byrne was frustrated to learn how many components in the missile had come from the West. It proved that North Korea's procurement networks were more robust and effective than even he, who investigates these networks, had realised.
From his experience, North Koreans based overseas set up fake companies in Hong Kong or other central Asian countries to buy the items using predominantly stolen cash. They then send the products onto North Korea, usually over its border with China. If a fake company is discovered and sanctioned, another will quickly pop up in its place.
Sanctions have long been considered an imperfect tool to combat these networks, but to have any hope of working they need to be regularly updated and enforced. Both Russia and China have refused to impose new sanctions on North Korea since 2017.
By buying Pyongyang's weapons, Moscow is now violating the very sanctions it once voted for as a member of the UN Security Council. Then earlier this year it effectively disbanded a UN panel that monitored sanctions breaches, likely to avoid scrutiny.
"We are witnessing the real-time crumbling of UN sanctions against North Korea, which buys Pyongyang a lot of breathing space", Mr Byrne said.
All this has implications that reach far beyond the war in Ukraine.
"The real winners here are the North Koreans", said Mr Byrne. "They have helped the Russians in a significant way, and this has bought them a tonne of leverage".
In March, RUSI documented large amounts of oil being shipped from Russia to North Korea, while railcars filled with what are thought to be rice and flour have been spotted crossing the countries' land border. This deal, thought to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds, will boost not only Pyongyang's economy, but its military.
Russia could also supply the North with the raw materials to continue making its missiles, or even military equipment such a fighter jets, and - at the most extreme end - the technical assistance to improve its nuclear weapons.
Additionally, the North is getting the chance to test its latest missiles in a real-war scenario for the first time. With this valuable data, it will be able to make them better.
More troubling still is that the war is providing North Korea with a shop window to the rest of the world.
Now that Pyongyang is mass producing these weapons, it will want to sell them to more countries, and if the missiles are good enough for Russia, they will be good enough for others, said Dr Lewis - especially as the Russians are setting the example that it is okay to violate sanctions.
He predicts going forward that North Korea will become a big supplier of missiles to countries in the China-Russia-Iran bloc. In the wake of Iran's assault on Israel this month, the US said it was "incredibly concerned" that North Korea could be working with Iran on its nuclear and ballistic weapons programmes.
"I see a lot of gloomy faces when we talk about this problem," said Mr Spleeters. "But the good news is that now we know how reliant they are on foreign technology, we can do something about it".
Mr Spleeters is optimistic that by working with manufacturers they can cut off North Korea's supply chains. His team has already succeeded in identifying and shutting down an illicit network before it was able to complete a critical sale.
But Dr Lewis is not convinced.
"We can make it harder, more inconvenient, maybe raise the cost, but none of this is going to prevent North Korea from making these weapons," he said, adding that the West had ultimately failed in its attempt to contain the rogue state.
Now not only are its missiles a source of prestige and political power, but they are also generating it vast amounts of money, Dr Lewis explained. So why would Kim Jong Un ever give them up now? | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-68933778 |
Madonna's Eurovision performance gets mixed response - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | null | Madonna's performance at the Eurovision Song Contest in Israel has drawn a mixed response from viewers. | null | Madonna's performance at the Eurovision Song Contest in Israel has drawn a mixed response from viewers.
The singer performed two songs, her 1989 hit Like A Prayer and new single Future, featuring US rapper Quavo.
At one point in the show, two of her dancers displayed the Israeli and Palestinian flags on their outfits as they walked arm in arm. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-48326199 |
Boeing in new inquiry over 787 inspection doubts - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The plane-maker told US regulators staff may have falsified inspection records for 787 Dreamliner jets. | Business | The US has opened a new inquiry into troubled jet firm Boeing, after the company told air safety regulators that it might not have properly inspected its 787 Dreamliner planes.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it would look into whether staff had falsified records.
It said Boeing was re-inspecting all 787 jets on the manufacturing line.
Boeing will be forced to develop an "action plan" to address concerns about planes already in service, it added.
Internally, the company told staff last week that the "misconduct" had not created an "immediate safety of flight issue", according to a message seen by BBC News.
"We quickly reviewed the matter and learned that several people had been violating company policies by not performing a required test, but recording the work as having been completed," Scott Stocker, head of the Boeing 787 program, said in the email to staff.
The FAA said that Boeing had come forward "voluntarily" last month to warn that it "may not have completed" inspections required to confirm adequate electrical safeguards where the wings join the main body of certain of its 787 Dreamliners, a large jet often used on international flights.
"The FAA is investigating whether Boeing completed the inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records," it said.
"As the investigation continues, the FAA will take any necessary action - as always - to ensure the safety of the flying public."
It is the latest problem to erupt at Boeing in recent years. In January, an unused emergency exit door blew off a new 737 Max 9 plane shortly after take-off, thrusting its manufacturing and safety processes into the spotlight.
The incident prompted the temporary grounding of dozens of planes and has forced the firm to drastically slow production, while sparking increased regulatory oversight, criminal investigation and other legal and financial troubles.
In March, chief executive Dave Calhoun said he would be stepping down by the end of the year, becoming the most high-profile person to exit the company in the wake of the incident.
Boeing's reputation had been damaged a few years ago, when two of its 737 Max planes crashed within five months of each other, claiming the lives of 346 passengers and crew. A 737 Max flown by Ethiopian Airlines aircraft crashed shortly after take-off in March, 2019, following a Lion Air crash in October 2018. That led to the then chief executive Dennis Muilenburg being fired.
Last month, Congress hosted a hearing featuring whistleblowers, including Sam Salehpour who testified that his concerns about the 787 had been dismissed.
Boeing has said it is working to reform its corporate culture to encourage people who see problems to speak out, with a "more than 500% increase" in reports from employees since January. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68966894 |
Daniel Anjorin: Hundreds at vigil for 'gentle, focused' 14-year-old - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Mourners gathered at Hainault Underground car park, metres away from where Daniel was killed. | London | More than 300 people have attended a vigil to pay tribute to Daniel Anjorin, a teenager who was fatally stabbed with a sword while on his way to school.
The 14-year-old was attacked in Hainault, north-east London, on Tuesday morning.
On Sunday, mourners gathered metres away from where Daniel was killed, at Hainault Underground station car park, to pay their respects.
Daniel's family was not present at the vigil.
Daniel's family is being supported by specialist police officers
The family's church, Jubilee Church London, also paid tribute to Daniel and his family at a service on Sunday.
Pastor Tope Koeoso told the congregation what had happened was "tragic and unimaginable".
He said the family have been members of the church for more than 15 years and that Daniel was baptised there so "whatever touches them, touches us all".
"This has hit all of us," he said.
Pastor Tope Koeoso said the church had been supporting Daniel's family all week
He added pastors had been supporting the family from the early moments of when the attack happened.
"One of the first people his brother called was the youth leader who immediately went to him to give emotional and spiritual support," he said.
"I know the family would want to say thanks to the police for the sensitive way they've cared for the family and protected them," he said, adding: "Although our hearts are heavy and the pain is deep, our faith is strong."
At the vigil held earlier in the day in Hainault, Harris, a 17-year-old boy who knew Daniel, told the crowd: "He was a kid that was not in any type of trouble. I'm not just saying that.
"He never did anything wrong. He focused on school, he got good grades, he (went) to church.
"His family are appreciating all your support. They've noticed everything you guys are doing community-wise, fundraiser-wise, Arsenal as well. They've noticed it all.
"On their behalf, thank all of you."
A teddy bear in an Arsenal football kit was laid at the vigil for Daniel
Arsenal, the football team Daniel supported, paid tribute to him during their Premier League game at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday.
During the match there was also a moment of applause in the 14th minute, with a banner reading "RIP Daniel" among the crowd.
Bouquets of flowers, handwritten notes, Arsenal FC memorabilia and teddies have been left at the bottom of Laing Close in Hainault, as well as a painting of Daniel.
A banner reading 'RIP Daniel' was held among the crowd at Arsenal's football match against Bournemouth
A family friend said the number of floral tributes left showed the outpouring of support from the whole country.
Alistair Soyode said people had come from "near and far" to pay their respects and offer solidarity.
"The flowers that have been laid are not just coming from one section of the community," he said.
"This is a full representation of what the United Kingdom is. Different people from different communities, nationalities, are showing their sympathies and prayers by laying flowers in this spot."
The community was thanked on behalf of Daniel's family
In a statement issued by the Met Police, his parents said: "We as a family are devastated by the loss of our beloved son Daniel.
"It is difficult for us at this time to process what has happened to him and that he will never come home. Daniel had left the house for school and then he was gone.
"Our children have lost their loving and precious brother and we have lost the most loved and amazing son."
His school, Bancroft's, in Woodford Green, said he was a "true scholar" who had a "positive nature and gentle character".
In a statement, it described him as a "core member" of the community, adding: "Losing such a young pupil is something we will always struggle to come to terms with."
Marcus Arduini Monzo, 36, from Newham, east London, has been charged with murdering Daniel.
He has also been charged with two counts of attempted murder, two counts of causing grievous bodily harm, aggravated burglary, and possession of a bladed article.
He was remanded in custody and will next appear in court at the Old Bailey on Tuesday.
Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk
• None Family devastated by loss of 'loved and amazing son' | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68961793 |
Newscast - Local Electioncast! The Reaction (part 4…) - BBC Sounds | 2024-05-06 | null | The results are in, and we look at what they really tell us. | null | The results are in, and we look at what they really tell us. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0hw6rq9 |
Rishi Sunak needs to own Tory election defeats and change course, says Suella Braverman - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Tories lost nearly 500 councillors, 10 councils and the West Midlands mayoralty in the elections. | UK Politics | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Braverman says she regrets backing Sunak for PM
Suella Braverman has called on Rishi Sunak to "own" the poor results for the Tories in England's local elections.
"The plan is not working," the former home secretary said, urging the PM to "change course" and swing to the right.
Ms Braverman, an MP and previous Tory leadership candidate, said there was not enough time to change leader before a general election, so it was up to Mr Sunak to "fix this".
But Transport Secretary Mark Harper insisted the PM's plan "is working".
The Conservatives are licking their wounds after a string of local election defeats. After the final votes were counted on Sunday, the Tories had lost control of 10 councils and more than 470 council seats.
The party also lost 10 Police and Crime Commissioners to Labour, marking a potentially significant blow for the Conservatives if they aim to centre their next general election campaign on law and order.
The re-election of Ben Houchen as the Tees Valley mayor on Friday provided respite for the party, but the loss of the West Midlands mayor Andy Street on Saturday evening was a blow.
The Conservatives also lost the Blackpool South by-election - Mr Sunak's seventh by-election defeat since he took control of the party.
"There is no disguising the fact these have been terrible election results for the Conservatives," Ms Braverman told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.
"I'm urging the prime minister to change course, to - with humility - reflect on what the voters are telling us and change the plan and the way that he is communicating and leading us."
Ms Braverman said although she regretted backing Mr Sunak for the leadership it would now be "impossible" to change leader with a general election due within about six months and there was "no superman or superwoman out there".
She added: "Rishi Sunak has been leading us for about 18 months, he has been making these decisions, these are the consequences of those decisions, he needs to own this and therefore he needs to fix it."
Setting out a potential course of action, Ms Braverman said the problem was Tory voters were "on strike", saying they were telling her "you're not a Conservative party any more", and Mr Sunak needed to show "he really cares".
She said: "He needs to actually lower taxes in a way that people will feel, not tweaking around the edges.
"If he's serious about migration, he needs to put a cap on legal migration, he needs to take us out of the European Convention on Human Rights - that's how you actually send the message that he's serious about stopping the boats."
When challenged on evidence moving further to the right would buoy Tory prospects, Ms Braverman replied: "The evidence is that people are not voting for what he's doing... They don't feel the benefits."
She added many Conservative MPs were privately "demoralised" and "at this rate we'll be lucky to have any Conservative MPs at the next election".
Despite the poor results, there has been no move against Mr Sunak from rebels within his own ranks, with one former minister telling Laura Kuenssberg: "There just isn't the impetus to roll the dice one more time."
There are no clear other options to replace Mr Sunak, in the view of many MPs; while some want Mr Sunak and his cabinet to soak up the blame, when the defeat they expect comes.
One former cabinet minister tells Laura Kuenssberg: "Sunak isn't being challenged only because no-one wants to own the failure."
Labour's campaigns chief Pat McFadden hailed the "tremendous" election results for the party, especially winning the West Midlands mayoral race which was "beyond our expectations".
"These were tremendous local election results, a tremendous by-election, and a set of mayoral results," he said, adding people can see "a changed Labour Party from a few years ago, a Labour Party that is passing the essential tests of trust that the voters look for - can you be trusted with public money and can you be trusted with national security?"
But Mr McFadden acknowledged Labour's position on the Middle East had cost the party at the local elections.
Defending the Conservative's general election chances, Mr Harper said there was still "all to play for" in a general election and insisted the government's plan "is working".
Pointing to the Rwanda plan, he said: "The plan is about delivering - the plan is working but we haven't got all the way through to the end of it yet.
"I think people want to see delivery, so they want to see inflation continue to come down, they want to see the boats stop, they want to see NHS waiting lists continue to fall."
He added the election outcome was closer than the polls had suggested it would be, pointing to a hung parliament, so "the election isn't a foregone conclusion".
Health Minister Maria Caulfield also said there was no need to change course but should deliver "Conservative values".
She said: "I don't think we need to change, I think we need to deliver on what we promised in the 2019 election.
"People are frustrated that we've not done as much on immigration as we said we would, the economy's struggled because of Covid... and we've had the war in Ukraine as well."
Aside from Mr Sunak's own position, the dire local election results for the Tories open up the possibility of further internal wrangling about the future direction of the party.
Following his defeat, Mr Street pointed to the close result in his mayoral battle, where he lost to Labour victor Richard Parker by just 1,508 votes.
In defeat, Mr Street suggested the fact he came so close proves the value of 'moderate' Conservatism - the opposite of Ms Braverman's prescription.
Mr Sunak will be facing calls from those like the former home secretary, who say he needs to be more radical, meaning that he finds himself pulled in two directions. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68961195 |
Watch: Thousands celebrate Ipswich Town Premier League promotion - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | null | Blue smoke and cheers fill the air as people line the streets to greet their newly promoted heroes. | null | Tens of thousands of people lined the streets to cheer Ipswich Town players on a parade to celebrate promotion to the Premier League.
Video showed blue smoke from flares, singing and chanting as the open-top bus made its way through a packed town to Christchurch Park.
The Tractor Boys secured promotion on Saturday with a 2-0 win over Huddersfield. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-68964860 |
Ipswich Town Premier League promotion parade sees fans pack streets - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Ipswich Town celebrate a return to the top flight with a bus parade from Portman Road. | Suffolk | BBC Suffolk's Brenner Woolley has been on the players' bus throughout the procession. Here are a few more of his photos:
Harry Clarke looking slightly more lively than Marcus Harness Image caption: Harry Clarke looking slightly more lively than Marcus Harness
Janoi Donacien, an international with St Lucia, joined Town permanently in 2019 after a loan spell from Accrington Stanley Image caption: Janoi Donacien, an international with St Lucia, joined Town permanently in 2019 after a loan spell from Accrington Stanley
Welsh international Nathan Broadhead fails to pass incognito as the bus passes St Margaret's Church Image caption: Welsh international Nathan Broadhead fails to pass incognito as the bus passes St Margaret's Church
Kayden Jackson gives it the thumbs-up Image caption: Kayden Jackson gives it the thumbs-up
Boxer Fabio Wardley joined in the celebrations as they turn into Soane Street Image caption: Boxer Fabio Wardley joined in the celebrations as they turn into Soane Street
Ipswich players share the moment with their fans outside the New Wolsey Theatre Image caption: Ipswich players share the moment with their fans outside the New Wolsey Theatre
We await the police/council estimates for the size of the crowd that has lined the streets and thronged Christchurch Park Image caption: We await the police/council estimates for the size of the crowd that has lined the streets and thronged Christchurch Park | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-suffolk-68964857 |
Drake denies allegations of underage relationships in Kendrick Lamar song - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | "I feel disgusted," says the musician, after Lamar claims he had relationships with underage women. | Entertainment & Arts | Drake says he would "have been arrested" if the allegations were true
Drake has denied allegations of having relationships with underage women, and of harbouring a secret love child, which were raised in a diss track by his rival Kendrick Lamar.
It comes amid an increasingly bitter war of words between the two stars, who have released a flurry of songs attacking each other over the weekend.
In Drake's latest offering, The Heart Part 6, he says he "feels disgusted" by Lamar's claims, and suggests he deliberately fed the star incorrect information in the hope he'd use it.
Lamar's accusations came in his third attack song of the weekend, called Not Like Us.
"Say, Drake, I hear you like 'em young," he raps. "Tryna strike a chord and it's probably A minor."
He had previously alluded to the allegation on a separate track, Meet The Grahams, in a verse addressed to Drake's mother, Sandra.
"We gotta raise our daughters knowing there's predators like him lurking… I'm looking to shoot through any pervert that lives, keep the family safe."
Lamar also claimed that Drake had a daughter who he had been keeping secret from the public.
In his response, Drake laughed off the accusation, saying it had been deliberately planted, and that his rival unknowingly took the bait.
"The ones that you're getting your stories from, they're all clowns," Drake rapped. "We plotted for a week and then we fed you the information/A daughter that's 11 years old, I bet he takes it."
And he angrily denied the allegations of underage sex, saying: "Drake is not a name that you gonn' see on no sex offender list, easy does it / You mentioning A minor … B sharp and tell the fans: Who was it?"
He continued: "I never been with no-one underage ... Just for clarity, I feel disgusted, I'm too respected."
If the allegations were true, he added, "I promise I'd have been arrested".
Kendrick Lamar kept the pressure on Drake all weekend, releasing three songs in the space of 36 hours
The rappers' months-long feud started last year with the Drake song First Person Shooter, where Fellow rapper J Cole boasted that he, Drake and Lamar were the "big three" of hip-hop.
Lamar responded with a verse on the song Like That, boasting of his superiority and declaring there was no big three, "it's just big me".
After the song reached number one in America, Drake responded with two diss tracks, Push Ups and Taylor Made Freestyle, the latter of which featured AI versions of Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg taunting Lamar.
That song was later taken down after a threat of legal action by Tupac's estate.
Lamar then began his latest volley of songs, beginning with Euphoria, in which he invoked the Drake's earlier feud with Pusha T, who revealed Drake had a son, unbeknownst to the public at the time.
That song is currently the third most-streamed track on Spotify, with its partner song Meet The Grahams at number two.
Drake's diss tracks Family Matters and Push Ups are at 13 and 33 respectively. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68965267 |
Bowen: Netanyahu knows Hamas survival amounts to his own defeat - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The Israeli PM is facing hard decisions following Hamas's surprise acceptance of a draft ceasefire deal. | Middle East | After months of on-off hard talking between belligerents and mediators, the time has come for hard decisions.
Hamas has agreed to a draft ceasefire deal, which is "far from meeting Israel's demands", according to Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He has still felt it necessary to dispatch a delegation to discuss it.
Israel agreed to a ceasefire offer at the end of April. The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it was "exceptionally generous".
A big challenge for the negotiators in Cairo is closing the gap between Israel's version and the one accepted by Hamas. Diplomatic sources in Qatar, which is part of the mediation effort with Egypt and the United States, told me "it is broadly the same as Israel's proposal. Just minor wordings changed and details".
Israel may decide that the differences are not minor. One major sticking point has been that Hamas wants a ceasefire to be permanent, not temporary, and to be followed by an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
If the US delegation, led by the CIA chief William Burns, believes the gaps can be bridged, Mr Netanyahu can expect pressure from Washington to agree.
Until Monday evening, Israel's working assumption was that Hamas would not accept a ceasefire proposal. Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, like most foreign observers, were blindsided when Hamas announced its decision.
There are two ways of looking at the Hamas gambit. It can be seen as a desperate move by an organisation badly bloodied and almost broken by Israel's long offensive.
Or it was an adroit political move, which has turned the pressure back on Mr Netanyahu. That explanation is more credible, as Israel's plans and assumptions were upended by the offer.
We know that Israel was basing its moves in the next phase of the war on an assumption that Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas chief in Gaza who has been in hiding since 7 October, would never accept a ceasefire.
Israel used the absence of a ceasefire offer from Hamas as an explanation for its decision to launch a military operation in Gaza. The US is very clear that it is against any ground operation in Rafah that could threaten the lives of more Palestinian civilians.
As Israel warned around 100,000 Palestinians to leave their homes at first light on Monday, its defence minister Yoav Gallant told his US counterpart that there was no alternative to a Rafah assault.
That, he said, was because Hamas had rejected every proposal for a temporary ceasefire and a release of hostages. Only a few hours later, Hamas made its announcement, calling Israel's bluff.
Mr Netanyahu is in a political bind. His governing style over more than 16 years as Israel's leader has been characterised by a habit of putting off difficult choices.
But now he is under severe pressure, from all sides, and however tempting it might be to play for time, this is a moment for decisions.
The most intense pressure comes from two ultranationalist Jewish extremists in his cabinet - finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, minister for national security.
Mr Netanyahu needs their votes to keep his coalition in power. They want Israel to occupy Rafah and have threatened to topple the government if he does not make it happen. For them, a ceasefire equals surrender.
News Hamas had accepted a proposal sparked protests demanding Israeli leaders do the same
At the same time, families and supporters of Israeli hostages have been demonstrating, blocking major roads to demand that Israel makes a deal to get them back home.
The hostage families have support in the war cabinet from Benny Gantz and Gabi Eisenkot, two opposition leaders who joined the cabinet after the 7 October attacks. They might leave the government if, in the absence of a ceasefire, the hostages stay put.
The Americans also want a deal. President Biden's support for Israel, even as its army killed huge numbers of Palestinian civilians, is costing him political support.
If Mr Biden decides that there is an acceptable version of a ceasefire to be had, he will push Benjamin Netanyahu to support it.
The Israeli leader would have to choose between his government's survival and the vital support the US president has given him in recent months.
It is widely believed in Israel that Mr Netanyahu wants to prolong the war to put off the moment of reckoning for his own part in the mistakes that gave Hamas its opportunity on 7 October to kill around 1200 people, mostly Israelis and take 240 hostages into Gaza.
A ceasefire would also mean that Benjamin Netanyahu has not achieved "total victory" over Hamas - one of his two main war aims. The other is freeing the hostages, which he has not achieved either.
This war is showing, once again, how hard it is for powerful countries like Israel to defeat much weaker organisations like Hamas. For Hamas, survival means victory, and Benjamin Netanyahu knows that, for him, would be a defeat. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68967000 |
Mexico: Surfers pay tribute to tourists found dead - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | null | Authorities believe three tourists were attacked trying to fend off an attempted theft. | null | Dozens of surfers performed a “paddle-out” ceremony as a tribute to the three tourists found dead in Mexico.
Local authorities confirmed that two Australian surfers and one American were shot in the head and their bodies dumped in a well.
Brothers Jake and Callum Robinson, 30 and 33, and their friend Jack Carter Rhoad, 30, disappeared on 27 April while on a surfing trip in Ensenada.
Officials believe the men were attacked trying to stop the theft of their pickup truck. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-68964757 |
UK inflation rate calculator: How much are prices rising for you? - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Use our calculator to find out how much the cost of living is going up in your household. | Business | Our personal inflation calculator, built by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in collaboration with the BBC, shows you what the inflation rate is for your household, and identifies the items in your household budget that have gone up the most in price over the past year. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62558817 |
Bushmills: Man nailed to fence in 'sinister attack' - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The man in his 20s was found with a nail through each hand in the early hours of Sunday morning. | Northern Ireland | The PSNI said a man has been left with potentially life-changing injuries after he was nailed to a fence
A man has been taken to hospital following a serious assault in a car park in Bushmills, County Antrim in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The man in his 20s was found nailed to a fence, with a nail through each hand, shortly after midnight.
Two vans, one belonging to the injured man, were found on fire in the car park near Dundarave Park.
Police said paramilitary involvement was one key line of inquiry.
Graffiti on nearby public toilets has been linked to the assault and arson.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said the man was left with potentially life-changing but not life-threatening injuries.
Police said it was a "sinister attack."
"We live in a democratic society where there is no justification for this. Those responsible brutalise their own communities and control others through intimidation and violence."
The assault happened in a public car park near Dundarave Park
Crews from Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) also attended the scene and extensive damage was caused to both vehicles.
It is understood the man was taken to hospital in a fire engine.
Speaking to BBC News NI on Sunday afternoon, Assistant Chief Constable Bobby Singleton said it was a "really shocking incident with levels of, almost, ultra violence".
Assistant Chief Constable Bobby Singleton says the local community is shocked
"We thought these kind of incidents were firmly in our past," he said.
"It's early days and we are keeping an open mind, but this incident bears all the hallmarks of what we would see as paramilitary-style attacks, so that will be one key line of inquiry," he said.
He added that, while the incident happened in a residential area, there are also holiday lets and that it was a busy bank holiday weekend.
The smell of burnt out wreckage greets tourists as they arrive at the car park, which is used as a park and ride service, open 24/7 and sits next to a housing estate at the end of the Main Street of the village.
About 20 people in mobile homes and camper vans were woken up by the sound of banging and blue lights in the early hours.
International visitors and Northern Ireland guests told BBC News NI of their shock at what they witnessed, in a village known for its tourist attractions.
BBC News NI spoke to Jackie - who was staying in her camper van when the incident took place.
"I saw the fire and I just hoped it was nothing to do with the campers, I put on my dressing gown and flip flops and went out," she said.
"One of campers was a nurse and tried to help," she added.
"I just thought: 'This is awful to happen in a place like Bushmills - they're trying to promote tourism and this has happened'," she added.
Richard Stewart says a young man was left with potentially "life changing" injuries and it was a horrific attack
Causeway Alliance councillor Alderman Richard Stewart said it was a "horrific attack."
"This is not wanted in Bushmills, it's not wanted in Northern Ireland. This is a thing of the past", he said."The local community is in deep shock at the nature and brutality of this attack."
TUV leader Jim Allister expressed his "dismay at the gruesome and cruel attack carried out in the village".
The PSNI is appealing for any witnesses or those who may have dashcam footage to contact them. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-68961875 |
BBC iPlayer - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | null | null | null | JavaScript seems to be disabled. Please enable JavaScript to take full advantage of iPlayer. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10318089 |
Crystal Palace 4-0 Manchester United: Michael Olise scores twice in dominant victory - BBC Sport | 2024-05-06 | null | Crystal Palace seal their first league double over Manchester United with a rampant 4-0 win at Selhurst Park. | null | Last updated on .From the section Premier League
Crystal Palace sealed a first league double over Manchester United with a rampant 4-0 win at Selhurst Park.
Michael Olise ran 20 yards under no challenge to eventually slot beyond Andre Onana to put Oliver Glasner's side in the lead after 13 minutes.
Jean-Philippe Mateta surged beyond Johnny Evans to finish emphatically for his sixth goal in a row on home turf.
Tyrick Mitchell tapped in from close range after a fine cross by Adam Wharton in the 58th minute and French youngster Olise capitalised on a Casemiro mistake to power a strike beyond a wanting Onana.
From the first minute, Glasner's men looked full of intent against a United side who failed to turn up at Selhurst Park.
As a defensive unit, United put in one of the worst performances of the season with Casemiro and Evans becoming their 14th centre back partnership used this campaign.
• None 'Under performing' Man Utd 'one of worst coached teams in league'
Eberechi Eze and Olise were given the freedom of the pitch to control the play and caused United trouble on numerous occasions.
Erik ten Hag's side threatened in a couple of moments with Casemiro twice having goals ruled out - the first for a foul on Dean Henderson and the second for offside.
Odsonne Edouard almost rubbed further salt in the wounds but his injury-time effort struck the upright.
With title-chasing Arsenal next up, United must greatly improve to avoid another thrashing.
At one stage in the season, Ten Hag's side looked as though they could put pressure on Aston Villa for a Champions League spot.
That dream is long gone and United are now at risk of missing out on qualifying for any European competition next season.
They must either finish seventh in the Premier League to secure Europa Conference League football or beat Manchester City in the FA Cup final to seal a Europa League place.
One win in seven has seen United slide down the table into eighth and their fixtures do not get any easier with league leaders Arsenal visiting Old Trafford on Sunday.
A defeat by this scoreline can be hugely damaging but for those United fans who made the trip to Selhurst Park on a Bank Holiday Monday, it is the manner in which the players seemingly looked disinterested that will hurt the most.
Wharton an outsider for the England squad?
All eyes have been on United's talented youngster, Kobbie Mainoo, and rightfully so but it is hard to ignore the performances being put in by midfielder Wharton since his January move.
Wharton, 20, has impressed since day one at Selhurst Park after his £18m move from Blackburn Rovers on transfer deadline day.
Up against England internationals Mason Mount and Mainoo, Wharton shone with his slick passing between the lines and combativeness in defence.
Positionally, Wharton is excellent. Especially for someone at such a tender age. He has the ability to know exactly where to be on the pitch and when it is best to release the ball for a team-mate.
The former Blackburn man has been a huge addition to a Palace side who have won four of their past five.
A fantastic cross for Joachim Andersen to set up Mitchell's goal was just a small sample of the quality Wharton brings.
England boss Gareth Southgate was in attendance in London with a preliminary squad for Euro 2024 set to be announced on Tuesday, 21 May and with the Three Lions short of players in the mould of Wharton, could a shock inclusion be on the cards?
• None Attempt saved. Jordan Ayew (Crystal Palace) left footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Odsonne Édouard.
• None Odsonne Édouard (Crystal Palace) hits the left post with a right footed shot from the left side of the box. Assisted by Marc Guéhi.
• None Delay over. They are ready to continue.
• None Attempt missed. Chris Richards (Crystal Palace) header from the left side of the six yard box misses to the right. Assisted by Jordan Ayew with a cross following a corner.
• None Odsonne Édouard (Crystal Palace) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
• None Attempt blocked. Michael Olise (Crystal Palace) left footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Adam Wharton. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68918237 |
MoD data breach: UK armed forces' personal details accessed in hack - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The details of serving Army, RAF and Navy personnel are involved, the BBC understands. | UK | The personal information of an unknown number of serving UK military personnel has been accessed in a significant data breach, the BBC understands.
The hack targeted a payroll system used by the Ministry of Defence, which includes names and bank details of both current and some past armed forces members.
In a very small number of cases, the data may include personal addresses.
It is unknown who is behind the hack or what the data may be used for.
The data, described as "personal HMRC-style information", relates to current and former members of the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force over a period of several years.
The system was managed by an external contractor and no operational MoD data has been obtained.
It is understood the MoD has taken immediate action and the system has been taken off-line, while investigations are under way.
The MoD is in the process of notifying and providing support and advice to those affected, including making veterans' organisations aware of what has happened.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps is due to update MPs about the hack in the Commons on Tuesday.
He is expected to set out a "multi-point plan" in response, which will include action to protect affected service men and women.
While it has not been disclosed who is behind this hack, it comes amid increased warnings about cyber-security threats facing the UK from hostile states and third parties.
Last year, the government published an updated version of its long-term defence strategy which said the use of "commercial spyware, ransomware and offensive cyber capabilities by state and non-state actors has proliferated".
In March, the government publicly accused China of being behind an August 2021 hack targeting the details of millions of voters held by the Electoral Commission.
In December 2023, the National Cyber Security Centre said Russian intelligence was behind a "malicious cyber activity attempting to interfere in UK politics and democratic processes".
Public institutions and private firms have also been targeted by hackers demanding ransoms.
The Metropolitan Police said it is not involved in any investigation at this stage. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68966497 |
Israel Gaza: Hamas says it accepts ceasefire proposal - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Israeli PM Netanyahu says the deal the Palestinian group agreed to is "far from Israel's requirements". | Middle East | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Celebrations in Gaza after Hamas says it accepts ceasefire deal
Hamas says it has informed Qatari and Egyptian mediators that it has accepted their proposal for a new Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal with Israel.
"The ball is now in Israel's court," an official in the Palestinian group said.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said the proposal accepted by Hamas was "far from Israel's basic requirements" but negotiations would continue.
Earlier Israel carried out air strikes on Rafah after warning Palestinians to evacuate parts of the city.
It has long threatened an offensive against Hamas hold-outs in the southern city.
Tens of thousands of residents are believed to be affected by the operation and many were seen cramming into vehicles or on to donkey carts on Monday.
A Hamas official called the evacuation order for eastern parts of Rafah, which was followed by Israeli air strikes, a "dangerous escalation".
The basis of the ceasefire deal is a weeks-long pause in fighting and the release of several dozen hostages held by Hamas.
On Monday evening, Hamas put out a statement saying its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, had informed Qatar's prime minister and Egypt's intelligence chief of its "approval of their proposal regarding a ceasefire agreement".
A senior Palestinian official familiar with the proposal told the BBC that Hamas had agreed to end "hostile activity forever" if the conditions were met.
That phrase hinted that Hamas might be contemplating the end of its armed struggle, although no further details were provided. It would come at the conclusion of a two-phase ceasefire deal, with each phase lasting 42 days.
The first phase would include the release of the female Israeli soldiers being held hostage, each in exchange for 50 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, including some who are serving life sentences.
During this period, Israeli troops would remain within Gaza. But within 11 days of the ceasefire coming into force, Israel would begin dismantling its military facilities in the centre of the territory and would withdraw from Salah al-Din Road, which is the main north-south route, and the coastal road.
After 11 days, displaced Palestinians would be allowed to return to the north.
Both Hamas and Israel have been under pressure to accept a new ceasefire and hostage deal
The second phase would conclude with a "sustainable long period of calm" and the complete lifting of the blockade of Gaza, according to the official.
"The ball is now in the court of [Israel], whether it will agree to the ceasefire agreement or obstruct it," a senior Hamas official told AFP news agency.
The were celebrations in Gaza as news of the Hamas statement spread.
But an unnamed Israeli official swiftly told Reuters news agency that the proposal Hamas had accepted was a "softened" version of an Egyptian proposal which included "far-reaching" conclusions that Israel could not accept.
"This would appear to be a ruse intended to make Israel look like the side refusing a deal," the official said.
Later, Prime Minister Netanyahu's office said in a statement: "Even though the Hamas proposal is far from Israel's basic requirements, Israel will send a delegation of mediators to exhaust the possibility of reaching an agreement under conditions acceptable to Israel."
At the same time, Israel's war cabinet had decided to continue the Rafah operation "to exert military pressure on Hamas to advance our war aims: the release of our hostages, destroy Hamas's military and governing capabilities and ensure that Gaza does not pose a threat to Israel in the future", it added.
The statement came at the same time as the Israeli military announced it was striking Hamas targets in eastern Rafah.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Gazans ask 'where will we go now?' after Rafah evacuation orders
US state department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that the US - which is attempting to broker a deal along with Qatar and Egypt - was reviewing Hamas's response and "discussing it with our partners".
"We continue to believe that a hostage deal is in the best interests of the Israeli people. It's in the best interests of the Palestinian people," he added.
"It would bring an immediate ceasefire. It would allow increased movement of humanitarian assistance and so we're going to continue to work to try to reach one."
The war began when Hamas gunmen stormed into southern Israel on 7 October, killing about 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages.
More than 34,700 people have been killed in Gaza during the ensuing Israeli military campaign, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
A deal agreed in November saw Hamas release 105 hostages in return for a week-long ceasefire and some 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Israel says 128 hostages remain unaccounted for in Gaza, at least 34 of whom are presumed dead. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68964108 |
‘I have a 50:50 chance of developing Alzheimer’s Disease in my 50s’ - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | John Jennings may have inherited a gene from his mother that could trigger early-onset of the condition. | Health | John Jennings, with his father Stuart, mother Carol and sister Emily
When John Jennings' mother started showing signs of Alzheimer's Disease at the age of 50, he and his sister Emily knew they too would also have a 50:50 chance of developing the condition that causes dementia. But a letter their mother wrote almost 40 years ago could hold the key to changing the course of the future for their family and thousands of others.
"You know you tend to get older people and they're buying a pair of shoes and they're like, 'Those will see me out'. I've basically always had that attitude," says 39-year-old John Jennings.
"I'm like, 'Shall I buy a new laptop?' - because I've had Macs that have lasted 10 years in the past."
John, who lives in Edinburgh with his husband Matt, is not bothered by material possessions because he doesn't know if he has inherited a faulty gene from his mother that could trigger early-onset Alzheimer's Disease.
"I've just found that the thing that makes me happiest is being around people who love me," he says. "So we just spend a lot of time building relationships and that seems to be the most fulfilling part of life."
But these social connections are the things John is most scared of losing if he does have the gene mutation and goes on to develop the condition in his 50s, like his mother Carol did.
"I'm trying to learn loads of languages and I'm obsessively exercising, I know for most people that would dramatically reduce my risk of getting Alzheimer's," says John, "but the fact of the matter is, for me, it doesn't make any difference."
For the majority of people, advancing age is the biggest risk factor in Alzheimer's. In every 100 people with the condition, less than 1% will have the inherited form.
Stuart Jennings was a Methodist minister and the family would often relocate because of his job
In the 1980s, it was widely thought Alzheimer's Disease had no familial link, but when John's grandfather - Carol's dad - and his four siblings were all diagnosed with the condition in their 50s, Carol knew this couldn't be a coincidence.
A new documentary for BBC Two tells the story of how Carol, a teacher from Coventry, helped change the face of Alzheimer's Disease research with one handwritten letter. She had always tried to find solutions to problems, says John, it was "her way of getting some control of the situation".
In 1986, Carol wrote to a team at University College London (UCL) who were studying the disease. By analysing the genetics of her family, the team identified a gene in 1991 that all her affected family members shared. A mutation to the amyloid precursor protein (APP) gene meant too much amyloid protein built up in the brain, which clumps together to form plaques and causes brain cells to die.
Carol passed down a 50% chance to John and his older sister Emily, 42, of inheriting the gene mutation that triggers early-onset Alzheimer's Disease.
"If someone has the gene, they will develop disease at around the same time that their family members did," says consultant neurologist, Dr Cath Mummery, head of clinical trials at the Dementia Research Centre, at UCLH.
"So they are aware of the ticking time bomb, especially as they near that age."
John says he's so proud of everything his mother achieved in Alzheimer's research
"It's tempting to think if I discovered that I had it, that Emily didn't, and vice versa," says John. "But it could be that both of us do. It could be that neither of us do."
For those at risk of genetic Alzheimer's Disease, a blood test can be taken - after specialist consultation and counselling - to show if the genetic abnormality that causes the disease is present.
John's mother Carol chose not to take the test, as she believed there was no point in worrying, says John, but while he respects his mother's choice, it's not the route he wants to go down.
"We could have planned better if we knew that she had," says John.
Carol became more isolated and timid as the disease progressed says John
He was 21 when his mother first started showing symptoms in the mid-2000s. Her condition slowly deteriorated until she became bedbound and couldn't speak.
Every stage of his mother's decline was "like a new tonne of bricks that you have to deal with", he says.
Carol passed away in March this year. She asked for her brain to be donated for scientific research.
John says he will definitely take the blood test at some point - it's just when - and he will decide on the timing with his sister. Now, is not the time.
"I think if one of us had the test then the other one would probably follow pretty quickly afterwards," says John.
"So it almost feels like it's a decision we need to make together."
Stuart Jennings cared for his wife Carol as her condition deteriorated
The one thing that might bring forward John's decision to take the test would be if he needs to know his gene status to start any medical treatment.
He is optimistic about new Alzheimer's drugs that could be licensed this year. They have been engineered to help the immune system clear amyloid from the brain and slow the progress of the disease. There are potentially serious side effects and their effectiveness depends on early diagnosis - so it is still early days in terms of knowing what impact they will have.
While genetic Alzheimer's Disease is rare, it is similar in many ways to more typical Alzheimer's Disease that develops in other people later in life, says Dr Mummery, and can be used as a model to find new therapies.
"If we can find a treatment that works in this genetic form, then we might be able to extrapolate from that to a treatment for the more common, non-genetic Alzheimer's Disease," she says.
All this has stemmed from the work Carol started with the team at UCL, says Dr Mummery.
While work continues on the development of treatments, John's coping mechanism is to remain resilient and have a positive outlook. He also recommends sharing experiences with others at support groups.
He is continuing his mother's legacy, helping to change the course of the future, by taking part in Alzheimer's Disease research and having regular brain scans.
John says he feels we are "on the cusp" of seeing treatments that can help stop the disease in its tracks.
"I'd really like to live long enough to see that - and I think I might."
The Jennings v Alzheimer's will be broadcast on Monday 13 May at 21:00 BST on BBC Two. Or catch up afterwards on BBC iPlayer.
If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this story, support and advice is available via the BBC Action Line | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68932988 |
Newscast - Local Electioncast! The BIG Result (part 3…) - BBC Sounds | 2024-05-06 | null | Labour win in the West Midlands. | null | The results are in, and we look at what they really tell us. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0hw48d8 |
The Global Story - King Charles: A "difficult" first year - BBC Sounds | 2024-05-06 | null | How have the royals navigated the rocky months following the Coronation? | null | How have the royals navigated the rocky months following the Coronation? | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct6dl3 |
Ukraine War: 'If we go home, a lot of inexperienced soldiers will die' - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Ukraine is outgunned and outmanned by the Russian invaders, who are inching closer. | Europe | These Ukrainian gunners are digging in near the eastern front line
Under the rich, leafy cover of the Ukrainian spring, an artillery unit awaits.
Only a fraction of their job is firing rockets from their 50-year-old launcher. Most of their time is spent digging a new bunker into the hillside.
They're outgunned and outmanned by the Russian invaders, 5km (3 miles) away in the eastern Donetsk region, who are inching closer.
Incoming American ammunition is expected to help, but how the Ukrainian government is addressing its need to recruit is controversial.
A new mobilisation bill passed earlier in April was criticised for not including a limit on time served. A clause aimed at demobilising soldiers after three years was dropped at the army's request.
Now, war-weary troops have told the BBC the military needs to "rethink" how it recruits.
Despite Kyiv lowering the conscription age to find replacements, it's not just a numbers game.
Thousands of trained troops like Oleksandr, a radio operator in the 21st separate Mechanised Brigade, have been fighting for the best part of two years without a proper rest.
"If we go home," he says, "inexperienced soldiers might be able to hold the line against the Russians, but a lot of them will die."
He taps his handset in a bunker where he also sleeps with four other soldiers. The thickness of the air tells you it's well lived in.
Outside, the woodland provides an illusion of calm, periodically jarred by a whistling artillery shell overhead.
This time last year, the arrival of spring's hard soil brought a sense of optimism with an anticipated counter-offensive. The conditions make it easier to move men and machinery.
Today, it just makes these troops' job of digging new defences more difficult.
"My men have become professionals after fighting for so long," says their commander with the call sign "Chyzh", proudly.
He points to their mobile rocket launcher under camouflage netting.
"They know each vehicle is like a woman," he claims. "Each one is individual, with her own whims and characteristics."
The unit's rocket launcher is more than 50 years old
Tucked away, their 1970s truck symbolises the current state of Ukraine's military. Old-fashioned in many ways yet modern in others - with a GPS guiding system - it lacks one key resource: rockets.
While Russia's army isn't a model of modern warfare, it is advancing on multiple parts of the eastern front line. It's why we're seeing new Ukrainian trenches being dug 30km (19 miles) back.
The invading forces have learnt tactical lessons and enjoy air superiority. Moscow has also drastically increased weapons production and is mobilising men at a faster rate than Ukraine can.
The sentiment in our wooded trench mirrors the Ukrainian government's mantra of "fighting for as long as it takes".
While the soldiers we meet might not have felt they could speak entirely freely, it's not an issue for Illia, whom I meet in the relative privacy of the main square of Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine.
Illia, a combat medic, thinks the military has been dishonest about what signing up means.
He argues that it would be more effective if recruiters told new soldiers that the first six months are "super hard" - but that they would then be trained for more specific roles.
"The infantry is the hardest job in the military," he says.
I spend countless nights worrying where my partner is. It's the experience of millions of Ukrainians
Tired as Illia is, the idea of fighting alongside a petrified conscript in a trench is not an appealing one. He also thinks a lack of transparency about the realities of the battlefield is further putting men off from registering to fight.
"What if this war lasts 10 years?"
Back in Kyiv, as we stroll down her normal jogging route, local MP Inna Sovsun explains to me why she abstained on the mobilisation bill vote. Her partner serves as a frontline medic.
"I spend countless nights worrying where he is," she explains. "It's the experience of millions of Ukrainians."
Ms Sovsun thinks there should be more of a focus on rotation, arguing Ukraine has enough men of a fighting age to swap with the 500,000 or so who are currently fighting.
"There are highly trained soldiers who can't be swapped, but what about the people in trenches?" she asks. "It takes time to train them, but what if this war lasts for 10 years?"
"We can't pretend to rely on the same people who started serving on day one."
Until now, Ukraine's army recruitment has been hampered by historical corruption claims and diminishing volunteers.
Now ministers are pursuing two key objectives: restoring trust in the system whilst increasing the pressure on men to fight.
Both made more difficult by the battlefield not going Ukraine's way. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68932127 |
Dashcam shows tornado obliterate Nebraska building - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | null | There were dozens of workers still inside when the extreme weather event struck - but all survived. | null | Video has emerged of the moment a tornado destroyed a building in Lincoln, Nebraska, on 26 April.
According to local media, there were dozens of workers still inside the industrial parts complex when the extreme weather event struck - but all survived. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68964597 |
Zendaya and Kim Kardashian stun on Met Gala red carpet - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The celebrities are showing up for fashion's night of nights in New York City. | US & Canada | Another year’s Met Gala has come to a close for the BBC team – we’re ready to turn into sleeping beauties ourselves.
It was a night filled with big gowns, garden motifs, cool accessories (literally, in the case of Camila Cabello’s ice purse) and high fashion, but no Rihanna.
What did Sleeping Beauties really mean? Whose looks were on-theme? That’s up for you to decide.
Here's a round-up of outfits from the night in case you missed a few.
Our coverage was brought to you by Brandon Drenon on the red carpet, fashion critic Scarlett Harris and Ana Faguy.
This page was edited by Brandon Livesay and Laura Blasey.
Thanks for joining us. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-68955283 |
New SNP leader John Swinney promises action on economy and jobs - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | In his acceptance speech, the new party leader also pledged to reach out to opponents of Scottish independence. | Scotland | John Swinney's campaign slogan was "Uniting for Independence". He has a ton of work to do if he's to deliver that goal.
As he said himself at his campaign launch, the SNP is "not as cohesive as it needs to be".
The party, he said, must have a "vibrant, internal democracy", with party leaders "questioned and challenged about priorities".
In other words, he is saying too much power has been concentrated in the hands of previous SNP leaders.
Swinney was in charge of the SNP 20 years ago, before Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon became first ministers. And his backers hope this "favourite son" of the SNP can take the Scottish government in a new direction.
But a long spell in government means it'll be judged by voters on what it's done - or not done. And since the UK government won't allow another referendum, the road to independence seems blocked for now.
All this leaves the new SNP leader having to tackle long-established problems. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-68964607 |
Free Madonna concert to end 'Celebration' tour brings fans to Brazil beach - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | null | The concert in Brazil marked the end of the singing icon's 'Celebration' world tour. | null | An estimated 1.6 million people gathered on Brazil's famous Copacabana beach on Saturday to watch a free Madonna concert.
The gig was put on to mark the end of the icon's 'Celebration' world tour, and featured performances of a number of her greatest hits. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-68961494 |
Madonna's free Brazil concert at Rio's Copacabana beach attracts more than 1.6 million fans - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The show at Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach was the final stop on the pop idol's Celebration Tour. | Entertainment & Arts | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Madonna performs to over a million on Copacabana beach
Madonna put on a free concert in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday night with throngs of fans flocking to see the pop idol on Brazil's famous Copacabana beach.
"Rio, here we are in the most beautiful place in the world," she declared, as the performance got under way.
The show was the final stop on the 65-year-old's Celebration Tour, celebrating her 40 years in music.
More than 1.6 million fans were estimated to have attended the show.
"Are you ready?" Madonna posted on her Instagram account seven hours before the show.
Crowds of fans were seen dancing along to Madonna's songs played from speakers on the stage, hours before the American superstar arrived.
In what many have called a "historic" show, Madonna impressed the audience with multiple set and costume changes and light displays.
The singer performed some of her greatest hits, including Nothing Really Matters, Like a Prayer and Vogue, and was joined on stage at one point by Brazilian singer Anitta.
There were giant screens located along the beach, to ensure the largely Brazilian crowd was able to see the event unfold. Some watched from apartments or hotels, others from boats.
There was also a large police presence to ensure the safety of all those in attendance.
T-shirts, souvenirs and billboards with Madonna's face decked the neighbourhood as excitement built ahead of the concert.
Since she burst onto the UK charts with Holiday in 1984, Madonna has scored another 71 hits, including 13 number one singles.
Some, like Vogue, Like A Prayer and Ray of Light, are era-defining anthems. Others, like Live To Tell and Don't Tell Me, are beloved fan favourites.
Fans had been anticipating Madonna's arrival in Rio de Janeiro
Last year, the superstar was found unconscious in her New York apartment in June and rushed to hospital, where she received treatment for a serious bacterial infection.
But she has since returned to full strength and her tour has been marked by her characteristically energetic performances.
The Rio concert was the final touch on a tour made up of 80 shows across Europe and North America. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68961409 |
Seven takeaways from the local elections - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | What you need to know from England's council and mayoral polls. | UK Politics | Almost all results are in from council elections across England, in the last big test of public opinion before a general election.
All of the results from the mayoral contests and all but one of the results from local councils have now been announced.
Here are the key takeaways from the results.
Labour gained more than 180 council seats to take control of eight councils, including Milton Keynes and Nuneaton, where there are traditional bellwether seats for general elections.
In key wards identified by the BBC, its vote share was up 3% compared to 2021, the last time most seats were contested.
The results, however, are only partially useful for working out the national picture, because independents feature more strongly in local votes.
There were also no contests in Scotland and Northern Ireland, whilst only police and crime commissioners were elected in Wales.
Its best early result was arguably in the by-election in Blackpool South, held alongside the local contests, which it won with a 26% swing from the Tories.
This is in line with national opinion polls, which suggest Sir Keir Starmer is heading for victory at this year's general election, whenever it is called.
And its victory in the West Midlands mayoral race - a late result which saw Richard Parker beat incumbent Tory Andy Street - was dubbed by Sir Keir a "phenomenal result" for Labour.
The party has lost over 470 councillors, just under half of the seats it was defending, in a bad day for Rishi Sunak.
It has returned only 515 councillors overall at these elections, fewer than the 522 council seats won by the Liberal Democrats.
The Tories lost control of 10 councils, including Basildon in Essex, which gained an iconic status for the Tories under Margaret Thatcher, when the Tories won working class areas that had traditionally voted Labour.
Despite the dismal results, however, the signs are that the prime minister's internal critics are holding off on a leadership challenge.
Mr Sunak can point to to Tees Valley, where incumbent Tory Ben Houchen won a third term as regional mayor, with senior figures saying the party is still in with a chance at the general election.
Labour won a trio of newly-created regional mayor roles, continuing its recent successes in this area in recent years.
Although its victory in the North East was widely expected, it will be particularly pleased with its victory in the East Midlands, expected to be a key battleground at the general election,
Its York and North Yorkshire win also provided the party with a PR coup, as the region contains Rishi Sunak's constituency.
Labour's Sadiq Khan won a third term as London mayor and Richard Parker defeated Andy Street in the West Midlands by the narrow margin of just 1,508 votes.
Labour has suffered some heavy losses in wards with a large number of Muslim voters, in a sign its stance on the Israel-Gaza war is affecting its vote in those areas.
In 58 local council wards analysed by the BBC, where more than 1 in 5 residents identify as Muslim, Labour's share of the vote was 21% down on 2021, the last time most seats were contested.
But there is some evidence the biggest drops in support are largely confined to wards where the party's support was already very strong.
George Galloway's strongly pro-Palestinian Workers Party of Britain won four seats - two in Rochdale, one in Calderdale and one in Manchester, where they ousted the Labour deputy leader of the council Luthfur Rahman.
Sir Keir Starmer travelled to Blackpool to toast his party's by-election success
It was a good election for smaller parties, with the Lib Dems and Greens winning council seats in areas they will be targeting at the general election.
The Liberal Democrats have made gains of 104 councillors so far and won Tunbridge Wells and Dorset.
It failed to take control of West Oxfordshire and Wokingham, both target areas.
The Greens have gained over 70 seats, including 10 on Bristol City Council, an area it is targeting at the general election, where they fell narrowly short of an overall majority.
The party has increased its vote share in areas with a high Muslim population, as well in areas with lots of students.
Nigel Farage and Richard Tice's party won 16.9% of the vote in Blackpool South, coming third, only 117 votes behind the Tory candidate.
This was its best performance yet in a Westminster by-election, although not as good as the 28.9% it won in Peterborough in 2019 in its previous guise as the Brexit Party.
The share of the vote suggests that while about two-thirds of the Tory vote may have gone to Labour, about a third went to Reform - something that may worry Tory election strategists.
However, the party has only won two council seats so far, both in Havant, near Portsmouth.
Assessing the party's performance here is more difficult, however, as it is only standing just over 326 candidates in 316 wards, a very low number.
Boris Johnson hit the headlines after being turned away from his local polling station after forgetting his voter ID.
The former prime minister, whose government introduced the rules, was later able to vote after returning with the right documentation.
Writing for the Daily Mail, Mr Johnson said he attempted to use a copy of Prospect magazine as a form of identification, but was turned away by local electorate officials.
The government also confirmed it intends to add Veteran Cards to the list of acceptable ID, after some former service personnel were turned away at polling stations.
Meanwhile, Conservative MP Tom Hunt said his dyspraxia caused him to lose his passport and he had to arrange an emergency proxy vote. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68949272 |
GPs: Insurance bill fund of £5m included in new contract - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Northern Ireland GPs have faced high indemnity fees which are paid by the NHS in other parts of the UK. | Northern Ireland | Northern Ireland GPs must pay about £10,000 a year on average to insurance themselves before they can treat patients
Northern Ireland's GPs have agreed a new contract which for the first time will help cover the cost of insuring them against medical negligence claims.
The Department of Health has set aside £5m to help GP surgeries meet the insurance costs.
The British Medical Association (BMA) has welcomed the one-year funding.
It is among changes in the 2024/25 GP contract aimed at cutting the cost of running a GP practice and stemming the flow of doctors from the sector.
All GPs must have insurance known as GP indemnity to work in the UK.
The NHS already pays for GP indemnity in other parts of the UK, but until now GPs in Northern Ireland had to pay their own indemnity bills.
It can cost each full-time GP up to £10,000 a year according to the BMA, which argued it was one of the factors which discouraged medical graduates from choosing to work in Northern Ireland.
Health Minister Robin Swann said the agreement of the GP contract for 2024/25 was "very welcome news" and an important step towards helping to stabilise GP services.
But he acknowledged there was "much more work to be done".
The BMA's contract negotiations were led by Belfast GP Alan Stout, who chairs the Northern Ireland General Practitioners Committee (NIGPC).
Dr Alan Stout said an average practice would receive about £15,900 for this financial year to cover indemnity
"Equalising the indemnity provision for GPs in Northern Ireland was a red line for the negotiators," he said.
State-backed indemnity schemes were introduced in England and Wales five years ago and since then Northern Ireland has "stood out like a sore thumb," according to Dr Stout.
He said indemnity fees "not only harmed us retaining our GPs because they could see this increased cost of being here, but it also then made it virtually impossible for us to attract people from elsewhere to come and work here".
Dr Stout explained that the £5m would be shared out between practices, based on their number of patients, meaning an average practice will receive about £15,900 for this financial year.
"We will continue to work with the department to bring forward a longer-term indemnity solution that ensures we have parity with the rest of the UK," he added.
The Department of Health said: "Despite the significant challenges facing the health budget, we have been able to reach agreement within the existing GMS (General Medical Services) budget envelope."
Northern Ireland's health service is under huge pressure, with increasing demand on GP surgeries, hospitals and social care services fuelled by an ageing population with increasingly complex health needs.
In recent years, 25 GP practices in Northern Ireland have handed back their contract to the health service, meaning health authorities often have to step in to run services until a new contractor can be found.
"Stabilising GP services is of crucial importance and I believe this contract is a step forward in that regard," Mr Swann said.
"Whilst the budget provided to me by the executive does not allow me to make a substantial increase in the overall value of the contract, I am pleased that the agreement announced today makes significant progress against key aims identified by GPs in their negotiations, including provision of dedicated funding for their indemnity costs."
Robin Swann said support for GPs had been a key priority since he returned to his post
Last month, Stormont ministers agreed an overall budget for Northern Ireland, under which the Department of Health was allocated the largest share of day-to-day funding, receiving £7.76bn.
However, Mr Swann, from the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), voted against the budget, saying it represented "a 2.3% cut on what we receive and on what we spent last year".
He had requested a budget of £1bn and warned that the shortfall would negatively affect hospital waiting lists, pay settlements, GP services and domiciliary care packages.
In order to simplify how GPs access payments from the health service, the Department of Health and the BMA agreed to move payment arrangements for some services into what is known as "core funding".
Dr Stout said this would streamline income for surgeries and provide "some much-needed simplification of current arrangements".
"I am pleased that practices will now see the bulk of their funding paid in 12-monthly instalments to help with cashflow and budget planning," he added.
"We were also able to ensure that no practice will lose any of their current income as there will be a financial floor for everyone." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-68964435 |
Bar singer who stepped in for Olly Murs at Take That gig says 'it's been madness' - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Daniel Rooney had been playing at a hotel bar when he was asked to perform at a Take That concert. | Entertainment & Arts | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Glasgow singer becomes last-minute Take That support
An up-and-coming singer who stood in for Olly Murs at a Take That gig in Glasgow at the last minute said it has "been madness".
"It's been a whirlwind," Daniel Rooney told BBC News. "My phone's not stopped for three days. It's been really fun."
The 26-year-old had been playing at a hotel bar nearby when he was asked to step in for support act Murs, who could not make it due to transport issues.
Take That's frontman Gary Barlow later thanked him on Instagram.
Rooney, from Cambuslang, South Lanarkshire, said he had been playing in his regular slot at the Radisson Red hotel when the presenter Ross King spotted him.
He was then whisked to the Ovo Hydro, where he found himself playing in front of 14,000 fans. "I usually play to around 40 people," he laughed. "It's madness."
Take That singer Gary Barlow praised Daniel for saving the day
Rooney said he did not have time to feel nervous as it all happened so fast.
"I was more just focusing on what songs to sing," he said. "I was more excited than anything else."
Rooney said Take That were "brilliant" and gave him some advice on what to play. When the gig finished, he also got some positive feedback from them.
Barlow also showed his appreciation on social media, writing: "This young man saved the day, thank you."
He added a picture of Rooney and three love heart emojis.
Rooney said his friends and family didn't believe him when he first told them what had happened.
"They thought it was a wind-up," he said. "It was only when they started seeing the news reports that they knew I wasn't joking."
He said he wants to enjoy his newfound fame and will spend the coming weeks recording some music.
"I just want to keep it going, and and see where it all goes," he said.
Ross King told BBC Good Morning Scotland that he had been having a meal in the hotel when he saw the news that Murs could not make the gig.
"Gary Barlow is one of my best mates. We suddenly got in contact," he said.
King said he told Barlow there was a "young guy" playing in the hotel, adding: "He's a great player, he's a great singer and he's got a great personality, I'd love to bring him over."
He said Barlow responded, telling him to bring Rooney over.
"We literally ran from the Radisson Red, there were no soundchecks and Daniel went on and just absolutely slayed the audience. He was just sensational," he said.
Olly Murs had been unable to get to Glasgow
On social media, fans praised Rooney's performance at the Ovo Hydro, with one saying he'd smashed it.
Murs, who has been supporting the world famous boy band on their This Life tour, was unable to make the gig on Friday night after his flight from London was cancelled.
He had been updating fans over the day on his Instagram story on his efforts to get to Glasgow. He posted a video from inside the plane before exiting and attempting to board another flight.
Eventually, he posted on social media that it was not going to happen.
After their gigs in Glasgow, Take That are due to perform in Manchester this week.
But their five dates will now be held at the AO Arena, after they were forced to move from the troubled Co-op Live arena due to "ongoing technical issues". | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68965007 |
Bernard Hill: Titanic and Lord of the Rings actor dies - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | His fellow actors from the 1997 Oscar-winning film pay tribute to a star whose career spanned decades. | Entertainment & Arts | Actor Bernard Hill, best known for roles in Titanic and Lord of the Rings, has died aged 79.
He played Captain Edward Smith in the 1997 Oscar-winning film and King Théoden in the Lord of the Rings.
His breakout role was in 1982 BBC TV drama Boys from the Blackstuff, where he portrayed Yosser Hughes, a character who struggled - and often failed - to cope with unemployment in Liverpool.
He died early on Sunday morning, his agent Lou Coulson confirmed.
With him at the time were his fiancee Alison and his son Gabriel.
Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd, the actors who played the hobbits Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, paid tribute to their co-star at Comic Con in Liverpool.
Astin began by saying: "We love him. He was intrepid, he was funny, he was gruff, he was irascible, he was beautiful."
Boyd recounted watching the trilogy with Monaghan, saying: "I don't think anyone spoke Tolkien's words as great as Bernard did. He would break my heart. He will be solely missed."
Alan Bleasdale, who wrote Boys from the Blackstuff, said Hill's death was a "great loss and also a great surprise".
"It was an astonishing, mesmeric performance - Bernard gave everything to that and you can see it in all the scenes. He became Yosser Hughes."
He added: "I was desperate to work with him. Everything he did - his whole procedure for working, the manner in which he worked and his performance was everything that you could ever wish for.
"You always felt that Bernard would live forever. He had a great strength, physically and of personality."
In full flow as King Théoden in the Lord of the Rings
Hill, who was from Manchester and lived in Suffolk, was due to return to TV screens in series two of The Responder, a BBC drama starring Martin Freeman, which begins airing on Sunday.
Lindsay Salt, director of BBC Drama, paid tribute to him, saying: "Bernard Hill blazed a trail across the screen, and his long-lasting career filled with iconic and remarkable roles is a testament to his incredible talent."
"From Boys from the Blackstuff, to Wolf Hall, The Responder, and many more, we feel truly honoured to have worked with Bernard at the BBC. Our thoughts are with his loved ones at this sad time."
In Boys from the Blackstuff, Hill drew praise for his gritty portrayal of Yosser Hughes, an intense character who pleaded "Gizza [give us a] job" as he sought work.
That show won a Bafta for best drama series in 1983, and in 2000 it was ranked seventh on a British Film Institute list of the best TV shows ever made.
Yosser Hughes, played by Bernard Hill, was one of the most memorable characters in 1982's Boys From The Blackstuff
Another of Hill's memorable BBC TV performances came in the 2015 drama series Wolf Hall, adapted from Hilary Mantel's book about the court of Henry VIII. Hill portrayed the Duke of Norfolk - an uncle of Anne Boleyn and an enemy of Cardinal Wolsey.
In Peter Jackson's epic trilogy The Lord of the Rings, Hill joined the cast for the second film, 2002's The Two Towers, and returned to the franchise for 2003's The Return Of The King, which picked up 11 Oscars.
Other roles in Hill's decades-long career included the 1976 BBC TV series I, Claudius, an appearance in 1982's Gandhi, Shirley Valentine in 1989, The Scorpion King in 2002 and 2008 Tom Cruise film Valkyrie.
He was meant to be at Comic Con Liverpool on Saturday, but had to cancel at the last minute, the convention said in a post on X. As news of his death broke, the organisers said on the platform they were "heartbroken" at Hill's death, and wished his family a "lot of strength".
Scottish musician Barbara Dickson also paid tribute on X, saying he had been a "really marvellous actor".
She added: "It was a privilege to have crossed paths with him. RIP Benny x." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68962192 |
Bradford house fire: Girl, 10, dies and four others treated - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A woman and three other children manage to escape from the property in the early hours of Sunday. | England | Police say the girl was found inside a property in Kingsdale Drive and declared dead at the scene
A 10-year-old girl has died in a fire at a house in Bradford.
A woman, aged 37, and three other children, aged 11, six and three, managed to flee the blaze on Kingsdale Drive just after 01:05 BST on Sunday.
They were taken to hospital for treatment and West Yorkshire Police said their injuries were not believed to be life-threatening.
The cause of the fire was not believed to be suspicious and an investigation was continuing, the force said.
A police cordon remains in place at the scene.
Det Ch Insp Zaheer Abbas, of Bradford District Police, said: "This is an absolutely tragic incident in which a young child has lost her life. Our thoughts are with her family at this time."
"The family are being supported by specially trained officers, a file will now be prepared for the coroner in due course," he added.
Police believe the cause of the fire at the house on Kingsdale Drive is not suspicious
Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-68961742 |
Brazil bridge buckles and plunges into river - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | null | Footage shows a man narrowly avoiding falling into the water as a bridge gives way. | null | Footage shows a man narrowly avoiding falling into a river in southern Brazil as a motorway bridge gave way on Tuesday.
Heavy rains - triggering huge floods in the state of Rio Grande do Sul - have killed 39 people, with 68 still missing, local officials say.
Tens of thousands have fled their homes and there have been power cuts and water outages.
On Thursday, a hydroelectric dam between the municipality of Cotiporã and the city of Bento Gonçalves collapsed, causing a two-metre (6.6ft) wave and plunging towns under water.
The extreme weather has been caused by a rare combination of hotter-than-average temperatures, high humidity and strong winds. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-68955655 |
Chris Mason: An evening of drama as Labour squeak West Midlands win - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Labour won with just over 1,500 votes more than the Tories in an incredibly close race. | UK Politics | Never let anyone tell you your vote doesn't count.
This is a region of around three million people.
And the gap between the Conservatives and Labour?
1,500 is a tiny majority in a parliamentary constituency of about 70,000 people.
It is miniscule in a region like the West Midlands.
Here in Birmingham's International Convention Centre, the tension was palpable.
The power, so often held by politicians, held by the people.
Democracy at its keenest; its sharpest.
The result was originally anticipated at 2:30pm. That time came and went. So too did 3:30pm.
Then news of what are known as 'bundle checks' - where bundles of counted votes are checked again.
And then news of a full recount in Coventry.
Conservative and Labour sources reckoned there were around just 2,000 votes in it - across the entire region.
Just after 8pm, Labour claimed victory - but we awaited the official result in Sandwell.
The result shouldn't be that surprising, given Labour's performance elsewhere and its national poll leads.
But it matters because the Conservatives had talked up their prospects.
In truth, it's a reminder of Andy Street's personal brand that this race was as close as it was.
He is a proud Conservative, but wears his affiliation lightly, and he came within a whisker.
A mature, functioning democracy requires the consent of its losers.
To Mr Street's credit - whatever his political future might hold - within moments of his loss he was willing to talk to reporters like me, when the instinct of some might have been to run a mile.
He claimed his performance - outperforming his party's current popularity - proved the case for what he called "moderate" Conservatism.
It was a contribution to the roaring debate about the future of his party - before, but particularly after the general election, and the defeat many Tories anticipate.
Mr Street's defeat, by the thinnest of margins, exposes the widest of psychological wounds - in a blizzard of Conservative setbacks; another loss - rather than the alternative, a morale propping up win.
And yet, for Rishi Sunak, as things stand, reassurance from at least one quarter: his own MPs don't appear to want to turf him out.
And neither, categorically, does Mr Street, telling me it would be "complete madness to have another moment of introspection".
But, right now at least, the electorate appears to have other ideas - and Mr Sunak doesn't have long to change people's minds.
Little wonder the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was here within a beat of the result demanding an election immediately.
His team tell us he was near enough, in a pub in Nottingham watching the football - and he dashed here.
It is not remotely surprising he wants a general election now - all opposition leaders since the dawn of time have always publicly said the same.
And remember, Labour has a colossal mountain to climb to manage even the narrowest of election victories.
But the evidence is growing that the prospect of Sir Keir being our next prime minister is becoming ever more likely.
• None Final local results to be declared as Conservatives pick over bleak showing | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68959732 |
The rise of Sweden's super rich - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Why the Nordic nation, despite its reputation for social equality, has so many billionaires. | Business | Konrad Bergström made his fortune in businesses including those that sold headphones and speakers
Sweden has a global reputation for championing high taxes and social equality, but it has become a European hotspot for the super rich.
On Lidingö island there are huge red and yellow wooden villas on rocky cliff tops, and white minimalist mansions with floor to ceiling windows.
Less than half an hour's drive from Stockholm city centre, this is one of Sweden's wealthiest neighbourhoods.
Serial entrepreneur Konrad Bergström flicks the light switch in his wine cellar, to reveal the 3,000 bottles he's got stored there. "French Bordeaux, that's what I love," he says, flashing a bright white smile.
Elsewhere, there's an outdoor pool, a gym upholstered in reindeer leather, and a workshop-cum-nightclub, complete with a large metal urinal.
"I have a lot of musical friends, so we play a lot of music," explains Bergström. He made his money co-founding businesses including a headphones and speaker company, and this home is one of four properties he owns in Sweden and Spain.
It's not a surprising lifestyle for a successful entrepreneur, but what might surprise global observers is how many people have become as wealthy as Mr Bergström - or even richer - in Sweden - a country with a global reputation for its leftist politics.
Although a right-wing coalition is currently in power, the nation has been run by Social Democrat-led governments for the majority of the last century, elected on promises to grow the economy in an equitable way, with taxes funding a strong welfare state.
Lidingö island is home to a number of Sweden's super wealthy
But Sweden has experienced a boom in the super rich over the last three decades.
In 1996, there were just 28 people with a net worth of a billion kronor or more (around $91m or £73m at today's exchange rate), according to a rich list published by former Swedish business magazine Veckans Affärer. Most of them came from families that had been rich for generations.
By 2021, there were 542 "kronor billionaires", according to a similar analysis by daily newspaper Aftonbladet, and between them they owned a wealth equivalent to 70% of the nation's GDP, a measure of the total value of goods and services in the economy.
Sweden - with a population of just 10 million - also has one of the world's highest proportions of "dollar billionaires" per capita. Forbes listed 43 Swedes worth $1bn or more in its 2024 rich list.
That equates to around four per million people, compared to about two per million in the US (which has 813 billionaires - the most of any nation - but is home to more than 342 million people).
"This has come about in a sort of a stealthy way - that you haven't really noticed it until after it happened," says Andreas Cervenka, a journalist at Aftonbladet, and author of the book Greedy Sweden, in which he explores the steady rise of Sweden's super rich.
"But in Stockholm, you can see the wealth with your own eyes, and the contrast between super rich people in some areas of Stockholm and quite poor people in other parts."
Journalist and author Andreas Cervenka is an expert on Sweden's super rich
One reason for the rise of the new super rich is Sweden's thriving tech scene. The country has a reputation as the Silicon Valley of Europe, having produced more than 40 so-called unicorn start-ups - companies worth more than $1bn - in the past two decades.
Skype and Spotify were founded here, as well as gaming firms King and Mojang. More recent global success stories include the financial tech start-up Tink, which Visa acquired for around $2bn during the pandemic, healthcare company Kry, and the e-scooter company Voi.
At Epicenter - a shared office and community space with a giant glass atrium - veteran entrepreneur Ola Ahlvarsson traces this success back to the 1990s. He says a tax rebate on home computers in Sweden "wired or connected all of us much faster than other countries".
A serial co-founder himself, he also points to a strong "culture of collaboration" in the start-up scene, with accomplished entrepreneurs often becoming role models for - and investors in - the next generation of tech companies.
Sweden's size makes it a popular test market, too. "If you want to see if it works on a larger market, you can - at limited cost and without too much risk for your brand or for your stock price - try things here," says Mr Ahlvarsson.
But Mr Cervenka argues there is another narrative that deserves more attention - monetary policies which he says have helped transform the country into a paradise for the super rich.
Sweden had very low interest rates from the early 2010s until a couple of years ago. This made it cheap to borrow money, so Swedes with cash to spare often chose to invest in property, or high risk investments like tech start-ups, many of which shot up in value as a result.
"One of the big factors that's driven this huge increase in billionaires is that we've had, for a number of years, quite a strong inflation in the value of assets," says Mr Cervenka.
Although top earners in Sweden are taxed more than 50% of their personal incomes - one of the highest rates in Europe - he argues that successive governments - on the right and left - have adjusted some taxes in a way that favours the rich.
The country scrapped wealth and inheritance taxes in the 2000s, and tax rates on money made from stocks and pay outs to company shareholders are much lower than taxes on salaries. The corporate tax rate has also dropped from around 30% in the 1990s to around 20% - slightly lower than the European average.
"You don't have to move out of Sweden if you're a billionaire today. And actually, some billionaires are moving here," says Mr Cervenka.
Back on Lidingö island, Konrad Bergström agrees that Sweden has "a very favourable tax system if you are building companies". However he says his wealth has a positive impact because his businesses - and homes - provide employment for others.
"We have a nanny and we have a gardener and cleaners… and that also gives more jobs. So we shouldn't forget about how we're building the society."
Mr Bergström points out that wealthy Swedish entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are also increasingly reinvesting their money in so-called "impact" start-ups, which have a focus on improving society or the environment.
In 2023, 74% of all venture capital funding to Swedish start-ups went to impact companies. This the highest percentage in the EU, and far above the European average of 35%, according to figures from Dealroom, which maps data on start-ups.
Perhaps the country's most high profile impact investor is Niklas Adalberth, who co-founded the unicorn payments platform Klarna. In 2017, he used $130m of his fortune to launch the Norrsken Foundation, an organisation that supports and invests in impact companies.
"I don't have the habits of a billionaire in terms of having a yacht or a private jet or anything like that," says Mr Adalberth. "This is my recipe for happiness."
Billionaire Niklas Adalberth says he has no interest in yachts or private planes
But others argue that Sweden is missing a nuanced public debate about billionaire wealth, beyond a good-bad dichotomy of how entrepreneurs are spending their fortunes.
Recent research from Örebro University concluded that the media image of Swedish billionaires is predominantly positive, and suggested that their fortunes are rarely explained in the context of the nation's shifting economic policies.
"As long as the super-rich are seen to embody the ideals of the neoliberal era, such as hard work, taking risks, and an entrepreneurial attitude, the inequality behind this is not questioned," says media researcher Axel Vikström.
Mr Cervenka adds that debates about taxing the super rich are not as pronounced in Sweden as they are in many other western countries, such as the US.
"That's sort of a paradox. One would think that with our background - being perceived as a socialist country - this would be top of mind," says the author. "I think it has to do with [the fact] that we have become more of a mentality of 'winner takes it all'.
"That, if you just play your cards right, you can also become a billionaire… And that's quite a significant shift, I think, in Swedish mentality."
Sweden's rich list also reveals that the nation's wealth remains largely concentrated in the hands of white men, despite the country's large immigrant population and decades of policies championing gender equality.
"Yes, it's where people can create new money, create new wealth, but it's still very closed and the double standards are quite high in terms of who gets their ideas funded," says Lola Akinmade, a Nigerian-Swedish novelist and entrepreneur. "Sweden is an incredible country that's a leader in many ways, but there's still a lot of people excluded from the system." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68927238 |
Lord of the Rings cast pay tribute to Bernard Hill, who has died aged 79 - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The actor, who plays King Théoden in Peter Jackson's trilogy, passed away early on Sunday morning. | Entertainment & Arts | Bernard Hill in full flow as King Théoden in the Lord of the Rings
The cast of The Lords of the Rings have paid tribute to their co-star Bernard Hill, who has died aged 79.
The actor - who played King Théoden in Peter Jackson's trilogy - passed away early on Sunday morning.
Elijah Wood, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan and Sean Astin, who played the four hobbits in the films, said goodbye to their "funny, gruff, beautiful" friend.
They told Comic Con fans in Liverpool they had lost a "family member".
Hill had been due to appear at the Merseyside event but had pulled out.
His co-stars from the films, based on JRR Tolkien's classic fantasy novels, stood up together on stage to share their thoughts on his passing.
Astin, who played Frodo's faithful companion Samwise Gamgee in the trilogy, began by saying: "So we lost a member of our family this morning, Bernard Hill passed, King Théoden.
"So we want to take a moment before we walk off the stage to honour him.
"We love him. He was intrepid, he was funny, he was gruff, he was irascible, he was beautiful."
Boyd, who played Pippin, recounted watching the trilogy with Monaghan, saying: "I don't think anyone spoke Tolkien's words as great as Bernard did. The way he grounded those words in a realism.
"He would break my heart. He will be sorely missed."
Hill's fiancee Alison and son Gabriel were with him when he died.
The Manchester-born actor joined the cast of The Lord of the Rings for the second film in the trilogy, 2002's The Two Towers, and returned to the franchise for 2003's The Return Of The King, which picked up 11 Oscars.
He was also well known for his role as Captain Edward Smith in Titanic.
But Hill's breakout role was in 1982 BBC TV drama Boys from the Blackstuff, where he portrayed Yosser Hughes, a character who struggled - and often failed - to cope with unemployment in Liverpool.
Alan Bleasdale, who wrote Boys from the Blackstuff, said Hill's death was "a great loss and also a great surprise".
"It was an astonishing, mesmeric performance - Bernard gave everything to that and you can see it in all the scenes. He became Yosser Hughes."
He added: "I was desperate to work with him. Everything he did - his whole procedure for working, the manner in which he worked and his performance was everything that you could ever wish for.
"You always felt that Bernard would live forever. He had a great strength, physically and of personality."
Hill was due to return to TV screens in series two of The Responder, a BBC drama starring Martin Freeman, which begins airing on Sunday.
Lindsay Salt, director of BBC Drama, paid tribute to him, saying: "Bernard Hill blazed a trail across the screen, and his long-lasting career filled with iconic and remarkable roles is a testament to his incredible talent."
"From Boys from the Blackstuff, to Wolf Hall, The Responder, and many more, we feel truly honoured to have worked with Bernard at the BBC. Our thoughts are with his loved ones at this sad time."
In Boys from the Blackstuff, Hill drew praise for his gritty portrayal of Yosser Hughes, an intense and memorable character who pleaded "Gizza [give us a] job" as he sought work.
That show won a Bafta for best drama series in 1983, and in 2000 it was ranked seventh on a British Film Institute list of the best TV shows ever made.
Yosser Hughes, played by Bernard Hill, was one of the most memorable characters in 1982's Boys From The Blackstuff
Another of Hill's memorable BBC TV performances came in the 2015 drama series Wolf Hall, adapted from Hilary Mantel's book about the court of Henry VIII. Hill portrayed the Duke of Norfolk - an uncle of Anne Boleyn and an enemy of Cardinal Wolsey.
Other roles in Hill's decades-long career included the 1976 BBC TV series I, Claudius, an appearance in 1982's Gandhi, Shirley Valentine in 1989, The Scorpion King in 2002 and 2008 Tom Cruise film Valkyrie.
He was meant to be at Comic Con Liverpool on Saturday, but had to cancel at the last minute, the convention said in a post on X. As news of his death broke, the organisers said on the platform they were "heartbroken" at Hill's death, and wished his family "a lot of strength".
Scottish musician Barbara Dickson also paid tribute on X, saying he had been "a really marvellous actor".
She added: "It was a privilege to have crossed paths with him. RIP Benny x." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68963308 |
Israel-Gaza war: 'My children cling to me as dogs raid Rafah graves near our shelter' - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | In a tent yards from a cemetery, Rehab Abu Daqqa tries to shield her seven children from Rafah's horrors. | Middle East | "I don't accept that me or my children should live next to a cemetery," says Rehab Abu Daqqa
The children hear the dogs snarling outside, just beyond the flimsy plastic of the tent.
The seven children of Rehab Abu Daqqa crowd around their mother. She is the last safe harbour in their lives. They have shared things, these children and their mother, which cannot be communicated to those who have not seen the things they have seen. Is there a word to express what a child feels knowing that just a few yards away, animals are dragging a body from a grave?
The vocabulary of childhood is inadequate amid the horrors of this emergency cemetery in Rafah.
Scared is the word Rehab Abu Daqqa uses.
WARNING: This report contains descriptions some readers may find disturbing
That is accurate. But there is more to it, she knows. The children have seen dogs eating the bodies. A human leg lying by a fence. So yes they are scared. But revolted too, and uncomprehending. The children who once had a home, went to school, lived according to the established rhythms of their family and community, are now refugees in a place that reeks of death.
"This morning the dogs took out a body from one of the graves and were eating it," Rehab Abu Daqqa says. "From night until dawn the dogs do not let us sleep… our children keep holding on to me because of how scared they are."
The dogs come in packs of dozens. Domestic pets whose owners are dead or displaced, mixed with Rafah's existing population of strays, all of them now feral and scavenging for whatever they can eat. The cemetery has numerous shallow graves where people place their dead until a time comes when they can be taken to their home area. On some graves relatives have placed bricks to try to keep the dogs away from the dead.
Rehab Abu Daqqa is gaunt and exhausted. Her mouth and nose are covered by cloth to fend off the stench of the graves. She praises the young men who came earlier to reinter a body dragged out that morning.
"I don't accept that me or my children should live next to a cemetery. My child is in the 3rd grade and today instead of playing a game he was drawing a grave and in the middle he drew a dead body. These are the children of Palestine… What can I tell you? Miserable, the word miserable doesn't even explain it."
The cemetery is one of several in Gaza that has become a refuge for people whose homes have been destroyed in the fighting. There are more than 1.4 million people crowded into Rafah - five times its pre-war population. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council that works out at 22,000 people for every square kilometre. Already disease is spreading, with outbreaks of diarrhoea, hepatitis A, and meningitis - as well as a continuing hunger crisis.
Rafah is where the refugees of Gaza reach the final wall, the border with Egypt which is closed to the overwhelming majority of the displaced. They arrive after being pushed from one place to another by the advance of the Israeli forces. Rehab Abu Daqqa has fled three times already and may soon have to uproot her family again if the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) offensive on Rafah goes ahead.
Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said a military operation in Rafah will go ahead "with or without" a ceasefire to destroy what he says are four Hamas battalions in the city. Hamas insists there can be no deal without a commitment to permanently end the war. Far right members of the Israeli coalition cabinet are warning Mr Netanyahu against compromise. The Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, a standard bearer for the settler movement, has called for "absolute destruction" in Rafah, saying there can be no "half work".
"Where do they [refugees] move to? " asks Dr Rik Peeperkorn, regional director of the World Health Organization (WHO), who recently returned from Rafah.
Dr Rik Peeperkorn from the WHO warns that an offensive in Rafah would lead to another humanitarian disaster on top of the existing one
"We already have a crisis in health. We have a water and sanitation crisis, a food crisis. There's a humanitarian disaster. So, there'll be just another humanitarian disaster on top of this… What we expect will be substantial additional mortality and sickness when a military incursion happens. So, a lot more people dying… a lot more death and a lot more diseases."
Dr Peeperkorn worked for seven years in Afghanistan with the UN and is not a man who is easily daunted. But when we met in Jerusalem he looked tired. The tiredness of a man who wakes every morning to the certainty of a crisis that seems to threaten ever worse consequences.
The WHO is already preparing for additional field hospitals to help if people are forced to move. But what happens to the seriously ill and the elderly, the 700 kidney dialysis patients who are currently being treated in a facility which once used to cater to 50?
"If you look at our health sector, it is crippled already and an incursion will actually mean that we lose another three hospitals… like they cannot be reached, they might be damaged, they might be partially destroyed. We are preparing for it with a contingency plan which is like a band aid."
A boy receiving treatment at the European Hospital in Rafah
My BBC colleagues have provided graphic evidence of the conditions inside hospitals, filming day after day throughout the war. At the European Hospital in Rafah families are camped in any space they can find, in the grounds and inside. They prepare meals in wards. Their children roam along the darkened corridors, past the wounded being wheeled on trollies, an old woman sitting on her own staring into the distance.
In the emergency care ward, 11-year-old Yassin al Ghalban is crying on his bed. His legs are gone, amputated below the knee after an air strike. A relative standing by the bed says, "he is surviving on painkillers".
11-year-old Yassin al Ghalban lies in a hospital bed at the European Hospital in Rafah
At the cemetery, Rehab Abu Daqqa watches her children play a few yards from the graves. The dogs are gone but the children keep close to their mother. Soon she will be on the move again because she cannot bear for her children to stay in this place.
There is no talk of hope here. Hope in Gaza departs at different speeds according to your circumstances. It can vanish in a second with the killing of a loved one. Or it can depart incrementally, hour after hour, as you are pushed from one squalid camp to another, and words fail as the questions from the children pile up. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68961719 |
Rachel Reeves: Government gaslighting people over state of economy - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The shadow chancellor's speech comes ahead of figures likely to show the UK has emerged from recession. | Business | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
The government is "gaslighting" Britain over the state of the economy and its plans are "deluded", shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has said.
Key economic figures this week are likely to show the UK emerging from recession, while the Bank of England could take steps towards interest rate cuts.
The economy is likely to be a key battleground in the upcoming general election.
The Tories said Labour had "no plan".
Giving a speech in the City of London, Ms Reeves said that suggestions the feel-good factor is returning are "completely out of touch with the realities on the ground".
On Friday, however, the first official data on gross domestic product in the three months to March is likely to show that the economy grew, marking the official end to a shallow recession last year.
The Bank of England could take further steps towards interest rate cuts on Thursday too, ahead of a likely sharp fall in inflation - which measures how prices rise over time - later in the month.
While Ms Reeves acknowledged "these things could happen this month", the opposition's intervention is designed to pre-empt the government's argument about the cost-of-living crisis being over and the coming general election being about "protecting the recovery".
"The Conservatives are gaslighting the British public," she said.
"Gaslighting" is psychologically manipulating a person into questioning his or her perception of reality.
At the beginning of 2023, Rishi Sunak set out the Conservatives' priorities, including halving inflation, growing the economy, and reducing government debt.
The government has met the first pledge, and never set out what it meant by growing the economy. Debt remains at levels last seen during the early 1960s.
Just days after a difficult set of local and mayoral elections for the Conservatives, Ms Reeves announced that Labour hopes to fight the general election "on the economy", saying that voters could choose "five more years of chaos with the Conservatives" or "stability with a changed Labour Party".
In response, chairman of the Conservative Party, Richard Holden MP, said: "The personnel may change but the Labour Party hasn't."
He said that the Labour Party has "no plan" and would take the British public "back to square one" with higher taxes and higher unemployment rates.
Despite abandoning its long-standing plan to borrow and spend £28bn of public money on new, green industries, Mr Reeves restated Labour's commitment to a new vision for a green economy, reflecting thinking in the US and Europe.
In February Labour rowed back on plans to spend £28bn a year on environmental projects if it wins the upcoming general election.
Responding to a question from the BBC on Tuesday, Ms Reeves said that getting to clean energy by 2030 and creating green jobs can be done "through other means", including the creation of GB Energy, the National Wealth Fund, and planning reforms.
Ms Reeves said that investment in low-carbon industries was being held back by the UK planning system.
Last month, her National Wealth Fund "taskforce", including former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, and the chief executives of Barclays and Aviva, met to discuss how to raise £22bn in private sector investment in next generation technologies.
It is expected to report back before the summer. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68965212 |
Laura Kuenssberg: Are Tories resigned to electoral fate under Rishi Sunak? - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Tory MPs are in no mood to oust Rishi Sunak despite local results pointing to general election defeat. | UK Politics | "This is the moment," a senior Tory excitedly told me just before these local elections began.
The moment when Rishi Sunak's leadership was in jeopardy - they hoped at least.
If the results were as dreadful as months of shocking national opinion polls suggest, there was a chance that Conservative MPs would find the desire and the gumption to push for change at the top.
On Saturday night, West Midlands Mayor Andy Street lost his berth after a nail-biting count.
That will be a huge disappointment to the Conservatives who had hoped to hang on there.
Especially with a razor thin margin, and after counting some votes again and again.
Like Ben Houchen on Teesside, Andy Street had campaigned as his own man, not a party apparatchik.
Recounts, and bundles of votes being checked, tell you how close that outcome really was.
The Street result is a huge last minute disappointment, and the council election results are dire. One minister told me there are "lots of places where panic could come from".
But even with the Street defeat, it seems "the moment" is more likely to be the one where Rishi Sunak's position as leader has been confirmed. So far.
Well, Tory HQ can't mention the mayor in Tees Valley, Ben Houchen's victory, often enough.
Before the elections, the party was urging its own MPs and the public to concentrate on where there were prominent local politicians.
It was a not very subtle pre-poll expectation management exercise. Lord Houchen, a local big character, did indeed buck the national trend.
And that showed that in areas where Conservatives had a good, well-known candidate and chucked the kitchen sinks at their campaign, they can win.
Although "there's an irony that a Boris guy, Ben, has saved Sunak", one Tory jokes.
But the result there does give the party at least one reason for cheer.
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Second, the pundits' calculators suggested that if the whole country had voted on Thursday, the gap between the Conservatives and Labour comes out at 9%: not, theoretically, an insurmountable gap to close when the general election campaign is miles away and could bend the curves.
One cabinet minister said that after months of "frothing at the mouth about apocalypse actually, maybe we could have a hung parliament. This will encourage people to believe there is a fight worth having."
Remember too, Labour fell so far behind in 2019 that it needs to shift millions of votes, not a few here and there, to win outright when it comes to the national question.
And even if the numbers look scary in lots of parts of the country, with the Tories losing hundreds of campaign foot soldiers, changing the leader to an as-yet-undecided alternative candidate might just cause more disruption, more bellyaching, more turmoil.
If chaos in the Westminster party has been part of the problem, why on earth would it be the solution?
A former minister says: "There just isn't the impetus to roll the dice one more time."
There is no one guiding idea or philosophy that binds the malcontents together either, beyond 'it looks grim, surely we need to do something or else we're out of a job?'
And there is no agreed candidate.
Indeed, one of those who might be tempted to run, former cabinet minister Suella Braverman, has written in the Sunday Telegraph that while she believes the party must change course, changing the leader is not the answer.
Rewind to the Theresa May days. The rebels weren't just well organised, they agreed they needed a more dramatic departure from the EU and they had a candidate waiting in the wings - Boris Johnson.
They were pushing for a different policy platform and they had a big personality, bristling with ambition, eager to plot. That's just not the case now.
And yet, one Tory describes it as "Alice in Wonderland" to suggest the victories of a mayor with strong personal backing like Ben Houchen means things are going to be OK for the national party.
And look at some of the other mayoral contests, the West Midlands, the East Midlands, or the embarrassment for Rishi Sunak of losing the mayoral contest in his own North Yorkshire neighbourhood.
Look at the map, not the mayors. Those councils the Conservatives have lost - Nuneaton, Redditch, Milton Keynes, Rushmoor, Basildon and so many others.
It's like a roll call of towns and areas where the Labour party hopes to win MPs at the general election. Add in the Lib Dems taking Dorset council, Tunbridge Wells and kicked the Tories out of control in Gloucester, and, in fact, winning more councillors than the Conservatives for the first time since 1996.
One former Tory minister told me, it has "been an appalling night and no amount of spin from the national party can hide the fact that we are in very, very big trouble".
Many of them are areas that were captured by the Tories as David Cameron made his way to Number 10 that now Keir Starmer is taking back as he attempts the same journey.
You will hear senior Conservatives claiming it's a normal thing to happen in the mid-term of a government.
But this is not mid-term. We are on the runway to the general election and the string of results culminating in the Tories losing shy of 500 councillors is about as bad as they feared it might be.
The results aren't that different since this time last year. So, hey, maybe no new emergency.
But hey, that means Rishi Sunak just isn't turning things round.
This time last year his allies argued: give us time, we're only just getting to grips with the chaos that Liz Truss and her lettuce created.
They hope there will be better economic news soon. But 12 months since the last set of council elections when the Tories got a kicking, all Rishi Sunak's resets, refreshes and attempts to regroup have had little effect so far.
As a tribe, Rishi Sunak's MPs don't believe they can hang on to Number 10 right now.
Isn't it weird for Tory MPs, often portrayed as the most Machiavellian and competitive people in the country, to hang on to a leader when they are pretty sure they are going to lose the election?
As we've talked about, there are fears another leadership rumpus could do more harm than good after all the travails they've already had.
Some still believe that Sunak is the best option they have. These results are grim. But it's also true that they don't mean Labour is guaranteed to get a majority.
And there's another more calculating factor. Some MPs want Rishi Sunak and his cabinet to soak up the blame, when the defeat they expect comes.
One former cabinet minister says: "Sunak isn't being challenged only because no-one wants to own the failure."
So, for now, the Conservative Party seems to have made its choice.
To hold on to power for a few more very difficult months with the hope of improving a dire situation, rather than taking a chance to change things that could spiral into an unknown chaos.
If the Conservatives ultimately crash to a big defeat, this weekend might come to represent the moment it accepted its fate.
One senior MP told me: "If it doesn't happen now then the party has made its choice and will suffer the consequences," with so many councillors gone, "there is nobody else left to sacrifice before it's us MPs."
The loss of the West Midlands mayoralty could give the would be rebels another flash of desire to act. But the consensus in the party as this weekend of results draws to a close seems already to have settled against any concerted move.
Would-be rebels have been avoiding, rather than rushing towards the microphones.
One Tory in their loose camp told me "the momentum was taken out of it on Friday. It had to all start very bad and continue like that. Houchen early saved him".
Will the symbolic loss of Andy Street's perch in the West Midlands change that? When MPs gather together again in Westminster, the mood could darken further, plotters could regroup and stiffen their resolve.
But as the final tallies of winners and losers are finalised, after millions of votes that suggested how unpopular the Tories are right now, Rishi Sunak's backers believe he is safe from his party.
But are the Conservatives safe from the country's verdict?
What questions would you like to ask Mark Harper, Pat McFadden or Yolande Makolo this Sunday?
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If you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68956828 |
Columbia University cancels main graduation amid protests - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The Ivy League school says it will hold smaller celebrations to focus on "keeping them safe". | US & Canada | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Gaza protesters disrupt US university graduations in Massachusetts and Michigan.
Columbia University has cancelled its main graduation after weeks of protests on campus over the Israel-Gaza war.
The Ivy League school said it was ditching the 15 May commencement in favour of smaller celebrations to focus on "keeping them safe".
The New York City university said it had arrived at the decision after consultations with student leaders.
Colleges across the US are bracing for disruptions at graduations amid pro-Palestinian protests.
Columbia University said in a statement on Monday: "Our students emphasized that these smaller-scale, school-based celebrations are most meaningful to them and their families.
"They are eager to cross the stage to applause and family pride and hear from their school's invited guest speakers.
"As a result, we will focus our resources on those school ceremonies and on keeping them safe, respectful, and running smoothly."
There have been demonstrations at nearly 140 colleges across 45 states and Washington DC since the protests started at Columbia University in mid-April, according to a BBC tally.
About 2,500 people have been arrested at campuses nationwide, according to an Associated Press count.
Last week, Columbia called in the police to clear pro-Palestinian protesters from its campus in Upper Manhattan, leading to more than 100 arrests.
Demonstrators had occupied Hamilton Hall, renaming it Hind's Hall, after a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed in Gaza.
The college also sent in officers on 18 April to arrest more than 100 demonstrators who had pitched dozens of tents at the Morningside neighbourhood campus.
The protesters have been calling for the college to divest from companies they say are profiting from the Israel-Gaza war, but a number of incidents of antisemitism have been reported during the unrest.
Columbia has asked that New York police remain on campus until at least 17 May.
Also on Monday, Harvard University's President Alan Garber warned protesters must end the encampments on campus or face suspension.
Police in riot gear, meanwhile, arrested dozens of protesters while clearing a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California San Diego.
Monday's raid came a day after police in Los Angeles cleared out a similar encampment at the University of Southern California (USC). No arrests were reported.
In a statement on Sunday, USC President Carol Folt said action had to be taken because the situation was "spiralling in a dangerous direction".
Also on Sunday, Northeastern University's graduation ceremony in Boston passed largely peacefully at the city's Fenway Park, with police on site.
Members of the graduating class held Palestinian flags and chanted pro-Palestinian phrases. Other students waved Israeli flags.
Similar demonstrations unfolded at the University of Michigan's commencement in Ann Arbor on Saturday.
The University of Mississippi, meanwhile, is investigating a student accused of apparently making monkey sounds towards a black woman during protests on campus last week. The student's membership of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity has been revoked.
Social media videos showed pro-Palestinian demonstrators shouted down by a larger group of counter-protesters last Thursday.
The college said it had opened an inquiry into "actions that conveyed hostility and racist overtones".
At Princeton University, at least 17 students said on Friday they would go on hunger strike until campus officials meet them to discuss divestment and a "cultural boycott of Israel".
They are also demanding the New Jersey college reverse punishment of students after police last week arrested 13 individuals for trespassing during an attempted sit-in.
The students were barred from campus and face disciplinary action including possible suspension or expulsion.
Also on Friday, faculty members from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) condemned the handling of student protests.
History department faculty members posted two letters condemning the administration after police last week swarmed the campus to clear an encampment.
University of Virginia history professors, meanwhile, released an open letter condemning that institution after police arrested 25 people on Saturday on campus, where pro-Palestinian protesters had refused to remove an encampment. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68965723 |
Cost of living: Five tips when asking for a pay rise - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Recruiters, a manager and a workplace psychologist give their advice on how to negotiate for more money. | Business | If you feel like you're not getting paid enough, you're probably not alone.
Increases in average wages have finally overtaken the pace of price rises, but many of us are still feeling the impact of the cost-of-living crisis.
Last year saw waves of strikes, with tens of thousands of workers walking out in disputes over pay, jobs and conditions.
Many of these strikes have taken place in the public sector, where workers often do not have the power to negotiate individually.
And whether you work in the public or private sector, even if you do have a conversation with your manager there's no guarantee that it will result in a pay rise.
However, there are ways to give yourself the best chance of success.
We spoke to recruiters, a manager and a workplace psychologist to get five tips on how to best negotiate for more money.
Jill Cotton, a career trends experts at jobs site Glassdoor, says scheduling a talk in advance will allow you and your boss time to prepare, and means you're more likely to have a productive conversation.
"Don't spring this on your line manager," Ms Cotton says. "Be upfront and say that you want to book in a conversation that is specifically about pay."
Rowsonara Begum, who helps her brother run Saffron Indian takeaway in Salisbury, says it also needs to be the right time for the business.
The takeaway has five members of staff and occasionally takes on additional workers during busy periods.
Rowsonara Begum says workers seeking a pay rise should ask at a good time
She says if workers pick a time when the business is doing well, they will have the best chance of successfully negotiating more money.
If you're asking for a pay rise, you should have lots of evidence of why you deserve one.
"Know what you've achieved either from a work setting or what you've done to develop yourself, maybe to support your team, support your line managers. List all the pros of what you've done," says Shan Saba, a director at Glasgow-based recruitment firm Brightwork.
This evidence also helps your manager rationalise why you should be paid more, according to Stephanie Davies, a workplace psychologist.
"The brain needs a 'why' - why should I pay you this amount?" she says.
However, it's not just about bringing a list of all the things you've done. You should also be clear about what you want to do next, says Mr Saba.
"If you have aspirations of moving up through your organisation, have a plan of what you're looking to do over the coming year."
When asking your boss for more money, it helps if you're confident and know your worth.
That's something Ms Begum has noticed, from her experience of having these talks with staff.
"Here in Salisbury, it's quite difficult to get the staff we need," she says.
"It's also become harder to recruit from overseas. So workers have negotiating power because they know there's a shortage."
Often people don't feel confident because there is a "stigma" around talking about pay, says Glassdoor's Jill Cotton, but it's "an important part of work".
Women and people from minority backgrounds can often find it particularly hard to ask for more more, adds psychologist Stephanie Davies.
Her advice to them is to ask for a mentor or role model, who can help guide them through those conversations.
Most experts agree it's best to have an exact figure in mind before embarking on a conversation about pay.
Do your research, advises James Reed, chair of recruitment firm Reed.
"You can go online and look at job adverts and see what other comparable jobs are being recruited for and what the salaries are," he says.
Ms Cotton warns the figure should be realistic.
"We would all love to be paid millions of pounds every single year. But we are being paid to fulfil a role with the skillset we have," she says.
If the above steps don't result in a pay rise, try not to be disheartened.
"Sometimes these conversations can take a while, even months, but it's important to keep the communication open," says Ms Begum.
Pay is also not the be-all and end-all, says Mr Reed.
"It's not just necessarily about money. You might be able to get more holiday or more flexibility around working hours," he says, adding you could also negotiate extra training and development.
And if you don't feel you're getting what you want from your employer, remember, there are other opportunities out there.
"You can always look elsewhere, that's the really big lesson," says Ms Davies. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64288791 |
CoppaFeel! founder Kris Hallenga dies aged 38 from breast cancer - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Her diagnosis 15 years ago prompted her to campaign for more awareness of breast cancer in the young. | Entertainment & Arts | CoppaFeel! said Hallenga "showed us that it is possible to live life to the full with cancer"
Kris Hallenga, founder of breast cancer awareness charity CoppaFeel!, has died at the age of 38.
The campaigner, who was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer 15 years ago, encouraged millions of women to check their breasts.
Hallenga was diagnosed when she was 23 after being turned away from her GP for more than a year.
Her friend, broadcaster and author Fearne Cotton, said: "She lived more fully than I've ever seen anyone live."
CoppaFeel!'s mission was to educate young people about breast cancer to ensure early, and potentially life-saving, diagnoses.
In a statement on Monday confirming her death, the charity CoppaFeel! said: "Kris approached life in a wildly creative, fun and fearless way, and showed us that it is possible to live life to the full with cancer."
It added that she had died "with fulfilment and a heart full of love".
(Left to right): Kris Hallenga, Fearne Cotton, Amanda Byram and twin sister Maren Hallenga at a music festival hosted by Coppafeel!
Alongside her philanthropic work, Hallenga was also a columnist at The Sun and author of best-selling book Glittering a Turd, which details how she discovered her life after being told she would die.
In 2014, a documentary about her life and work - Kris: Dying to Live - was aired on BBC Three.
In it, she said: "I feel like I'm a voice for other girls going through [cancer]. Every day that I enjoy, that I am grateful for, is another level of acceptance for me.
"We are all going to die. I am just aware that it might happen sooner than I possibly had planned."
Last year, Hallenga held a living funeral, attended by celebrities including Dawn French, at Truro Cathedral.
At the event, also called a pre-funeral, French revived her Vicar of Dibley role as Geraldine Granger and delivered a eulogy.
Reflecting on the day, the 65-year-old actress said: "It was my privilege and joy to Dibley it up at Kris's FUNeral on Sat. She wanted to host the best possible party. She did. It was phenomenal."
Explaining her reason for wanting to have a living funeral, Hallenga said: "I want to be present at the event where my people have a thing or two to say about me, where I have the opportunity to show how much they mean to me."
One month after her diagnosis, Hallenga set up CoppaFeel! with her twin sister Maren to help raise awareness at schools and music festivals.
On Monday, the charity said that Hallenga's family had requested "peace and privacy".
"Please remember the amazing life Kris led and the things she achieved, but above all else honour her memory by checking your chest... it could just save your life," it added.
In England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, cancer treatment should start within 62 days of an urgent referral by a GP.
The charity Breast Cancer Now says significant progress has been made on breast cancer research over the decades but it is "not a done deal".
It estimates that 11,500 people a year in the UK die from the disease.
If you have been affected by issues raised in this article you can visit the BBC Action Line pages.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-68965371 |
County Antrim: Bushmills 'left in shock' after man nailed to fence - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | UUP leader Doug Beattie says the attack had "all the hallmarks" of being carried out by loyalist paramilitaries. | Northern Ireland | The PSNI said a man has been left with potentially life-changing injuries after he was nailed to a fence
People in Bushmills have been "left in shock" following a serious assault in which a man was left nailed to a fence, an assembly member has said.
A man was taken to hospital following the incident in a car park in the County Antrim town in the early hours of Sunday.
The man in his 20s was found with a nail through each hand at a fence.
UUP leader Doug Beattie said the attack had "all the hallmarks" of being carried out by loyalist paramilitaries.
Police said paramilitary involvement was one key line of inquiry.
Two vans, one belonging to the injured man, were found on fire in the car park near Dundarave Park.
Graffiti on nearby public toilets has been linked to the assault and arson.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said the man was left with potentially life-changing but not life-threatening injuries.
Assistant Chief Constable Bobby Singleton told BBC News NI it was a "really shocking incident with levels of, almost, ultra violence".
"Without a shadow of a doubt this has all the hallmarks of being loyalist paramilitaries," says UUP leader Doug Beattie
Speaking to BBC's Evening Extra programme, Mr Beattie described it as "appalling and absolutely barbaric".
He called for a stronger, multi-agency response to so-called paramilitary attacks.
"They are criminals and they need to be treated as such and I think we give them a little bit too much credibility because we don't have a better way of explaining them," the UUP leader said.
Such attacks are "designed to instil fear into communities", making it difficult for people to challenge those responsible, he added.
"[The] only way to challenge that is to use everything available to us - MI5, NCA, PSNI, HMRC - everything working together to dismantle these people… to make sure that we put them away and we put them away for a long time," he said.
Mr Beattie said agencies "need to really look at this from top to bottom" and criticised the use of segregated prison regimes in Northern Ireland.
"They go into prison and they come out with their title of brigadier and some sort of kudos within communities - that all has to end," he added.
Alliance MLA Sian Mullholland said that there was "no place for vigilantism"
Alliance MLA Sian Mullholland described the attack as "absolutely uncalled for and unjustifiable".
She said that there was "no place for vigilantism", adding this was "something that shouldn't be happening in 2024 in our society".
"If people do have concerns, the police and the justice system as the only route that we have to follow - otherwise we're in the wild west," Ms Mulholland told BBC News NI.
She added the "ripple effects" of the "barbaric" attack would be felt beyond the victim, by the community in Bushmills, the emergency services who responded to the incident, and tourists staying in campervans in the car park during the attack.
DUP MLA Paul Frew said: "This criminal and violent behaviour cannot be tolerated in a peaceful community and has to be condemned."
TUV leader Jim Allister expressed his "dismay at the gruesome and cruel attack". | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-68964281 |
Canadian grandad flies to Sheffield to meet lifesaving stem cell donor - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Rod Neander, from Canada, flies to Sheffield to thank the man whose stem cells helped save his life. | Sheffield & South Yorkshire | Tom Marshall (left) said it was an honour to donate to Mr Neander (right)
A Canadian man has flown thousands of miles to Yorkshire to meet the stem cell donor who helped save his life.
Rod Neander, who was diagnosed in 2018 with blood cancer, said he had found the chance to thank Tom Marshall, 30, from Sheffield, "overwhelming".
Mr Marshall donated his stem cells to Mr Neander after having signed up to the Anthony Nolan register aged 18.
Following the visit last month, Mr Marshall described Mr Neander as "more like family" than a friend.
He said before signing up to the stem cell register, he had often previously given blood, but he had then read a pamphlet on the subject.
"I saw it as an opportunity to help people. If I could do it then I thought, 'why not?'"
After finding out he was a match for someone, Mr Marshall donated stem cells at Sheffield's Royal Hallamshire Hospital in April 2020.
He said he had felt "a bit of excitement and a bit of apprehension" on getting the call, but felt it was his "opportunity to do something good for someone else".
The recipient, Mr Neander, a grandfather-of-three in his early 60s, had previously been diagnosed with a blood cancer known as diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.
After the donation, the pair had to wait some time to meet up because the Anthony Nolan Trust asks that there be no contact between patients and donors for two years.
Once this period was up, Mr Marshall and Mr Neander started communicating via email and video calls, before Mr Neander made the trip from Canada to Sheffield in April.
Mr Marshall donated stem cells at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield in 2020
Mr Marshall said meeting Mr Neander in person "made me feel that donating stem cells is the best thing that I've ever done".
"Becoming a dad has made me realise time is so precious and donating stem cells to give Rod more time is the best gift that I have ever given," he said.
"The blood we share hasn't just made us friends but more like family."
Meanwhile, Mr Neander said: "The chance to say thank you to Tom, my stem cell donor, is overwhelming."
The transplant had allowed him to "get back to the things I love", Mr Neander said.
Henny Braund, chief executive of the Anthony Nolan Trust, said: "Our donors like Tom are incredible. They allow Anthony Nolan to save lives through stem cells."
Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-68961347 |
Rishi Sunak vows to fight on – but Tory MPs feel gloomy - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | PM says the general election result is "not a foregone conclusion", despite "disappointing" local elections. | UK Politics | Rishi Sunak has said the general election result is "not a foregone conclusion", despite "a disappointing" set of local elections for the Tories.
Speaking to broadcasters for the first time since the extent of Tory losses were clear, the PM said he was "determined to fight" on.
The party lost 470 council seats, as well as all but one mayoral contests.
The BBC has spoken to a number of Tory MPs who reflected an increasing pessimism in the party.
One senior figure in the party described the next months as "managed decline", and talked of the Conservatives waiting for their fate.
But there appears to be no prospect of a move against Rishi Sunak in the coming days.
Challenged over his suggestion there could be a hung Parliament, Mr Sunak said: "The independent analysis shows that whilst of course this was a disappointing weekend for us, that the result of the next general election isn't a foregone conclusion and indeed actually is closer than, or the situation is closer than, many people are saying - or indeed some of the opinion polls are predicting.
"And that's why I'm absolutely determined to fight incredibly hard for what I believe and for the future country that I want to build, and that's what I'm going to do."
One MP argued talk of hung Parliament was "delusional" and said the Tories would be lucky to win more than 200 seats out of 650 at the general election.
Others are more pessimistic and think the number of Tory MPs could be similar to 1997, when John Major returned just 165.
Even among those who think a hung parliament is possible, few are arguing the Conservatives have much chance of being the biggest party.
One former cabinet minister, themselves facing a challenge to keep their seat, said the case to voters would be they should vote Conservative to stop a Labour landslide.
The prime minister's job in the next few days will be to try and rally his party and persuade them all is not lost.
But as has been the case for some time now, there is still an active debate about what the party should do next.
Former prime minister Liz Truss is among those arguing privately that changing the leader would be mad but that the Conservatives need to offer "fundamental reform" - policy, not personnel.
There are figures on the right of the party agitating, and calls for the Conservatives to back leaving the European Convention on Human Rights.
Some want a radical reshuffle or more moves to cut taxes.
Some have suggested finding more wedge issues to highlight differences with Labour on cultural issues.
Former home secretary Suella Braverman is among those urging the prime minister to change course and adopt more right-wing policies, although she argued it would be "impossible" to change leaders so close to a general election.
But those in the centrist One Nation group agree with Andy Street, who lost the West Midlands mayoral contest by just 1,508 votes, that the party should focus on "moderate, inclusive, tolerant Conservatism".
Talk of tacking to the right is "barmy", said one MP.
"They are in a minority." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68965356 |
Inside No. 9: Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith on proving TV bosses wrong - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith on how they have experimented with their comedy anthology. | Entertainment & Arts | The first episode in the new series is called Boo to a Goose
From bone-chilling thrillers to hilariously dark comedies, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton's anthology has managed to shock and surprise viewers for the past decade.
Ahead of the ninth and final season of Bafta award-winning Inside No. 9, they have been reflecting on the show's history, and it wasn't always plain sailing.
"There have definitely been times where TV executives have thought we can't achieve certain things, but we've always proved them wrong," explains 56-year-old Pemberton.
The pair haven't been afraid to experiment over the years, having produced an entirely silent episode, one all in iambic pentameter and now, in the final series, an episode filmed from a doorbell camera.
Pemberton remembers one particular episode that bosses said would never work.
"We wrote an episode where all the characters were filmed talking into a fixed cameras, and to prove that it would work, we directed it ourselves.
"It actually ended up being one of the most gripping episodes we've ever made."
The episode, Thinking Out Loud, was praised highly by critics, and is often included in a roundup of best episodes.
The i newspaper awarded the episode five stars and Sarah Hughes wrote that it "pulled the rug from underneath its audience's feet".
Inside No. 9 won a Bafta for best scripted comedy in 2021
The actors also said bosses weren't too sure about the format of the show when they first suggested it.
"When we first pitched the idea of an anthology format with individual stories lasting 30 minutes, it felt radical and wasn't very well received," explains Shearsmith.
"But now the tide has turned," he says, with the likes of Charlie Brooker's TV show Black Mirror proving successful, with seven nominations at this year's TV Baftas.
In total, Pemberton and Shearsmith, who previously worked together on black comedy show The League of Gentleman, have written 55 standalone episodes of Inside No. 9 which can be watched in any order.
The duo credit the success of the show to the variety of genres it crosses and the self-contained nature of each episode.
Shearsmith says people are now more interested in commitment-free TV instead of drawn-out series with convoluted plots and too many characters.
Pemberton describes the series as "a box of chocolates and one of them is poison".
"Sometimes you think the story is one genre and then halfway through it turns into another," he says. "It does so well because you never know what you're going to get."
Previous series have been met with a positive response from critics, with the eighth one receiving five stars from Carol Midgley at The Times, who described it as "exquisite".
And the pair definitely have pulled off some pretty impressive stunts over the years.
In 2018 their Halloween special episode tricked viewers into thinking the live show had run into technical difficulties so an old episode would air instead. It turned out the technical difficulties were actually all planned and part of the spooky twist.
The pair have pulled off some impressive stunts over the past 10 years
But the problem with these kind of stunts and tricks is that they can only be done once.
Regular Inside No. 9 viewers know to always think outside the box and expect the unexpected.
So how do the writer and actor duo continuously manage to surprise viewers and deliver some killer (sometimes literally) twists?
"It has become increasingly difficult when people know to watch for red herrings, but we just try and focus on inventing good stories that will hook you quickly and only need 30 minutes to tell," says 54-year-old Shearsmith.
"The last 30 seconds of a show shouldn't be everything, it's actually all about the journey," he adds. "The punchline of a joke doesn't make sense without the actual joke."
Pemberton says that it's important for the them to "plant the seed early" and says many viewers watch the episodes again, to see all the things they didn't spot the first time round.
"The answer is there all along," Pemberton tells the BBC.
Speaking about the new series that airs on 8 May, there's not much that Shearsmith and Pemberton will give away.
Both say they are "very cagey" when it comes to giving out information about the show, as part of its appeal is people don't know what to expect.
Pemberton says the films and shows that have stuck with him the most over the years are the ones where he's gone in blind. "I think if I had read a synopsis or seen a trailer before it would have ruined it for me."
However, the duo are particularly excited about the first episode of the final series, which will be the 50th episode in the anthology.
Boo to a Goose sees an ensemble of British actors including Siobhan Finneran and Charlie Cooper all stuck on a late night train that has broken down.
"Every series we do an ensemble piece and we love it, because we put together our favourite actors, trap them together and see what happens," Pemberton says.
As the series come to an end, the pair say they are feeling a mix of emotions.
Shearsmith says he never thought the show would be as successful as it is and is "delighted" that it has run for so many years.
"It's not a sad thing that it's ending, in fact it feels like a poetic point to stop at series nine," Shearsmith adds.
Having produced a range of episodes that are as shocking as they are disturbing, and comic as they are emotional, for Pemberton it feels like "we have done a lifetime of work in just 10 years" and both are very proud of leaving something behind. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68937407 |
The Hobbit first edition bought for £1.50 could fetch thousands - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A rare copy of JRR Tolkien's novel bought at a car boot sale could make thousands at auction. | Wales | A rare copy of The Hobbit was bought for £1.50 at a car boot sale
A first edition of The Hobbit bought at a car boot sale for £1.50 could be worth thousands of pounds if sold at auction.
The text was among a box of random books a bargain hunter picked up at Bath Racecourse - after he knocked the seller down from £2.
He then plonked them in his garage to gather dust for the next five years.
On putting up a shelf he remembered the books and rescued them from the outbuilding.
After setting aside a book on medicine, one among the others caught his eye.
Bargain Hunt star Richard Madley, from Cardiff, dubbed the text "one of the holy grails".
"He glanced upon a bright green, white and blue jacket and thought, 'That's quite jazzy, it looks 1930s to me'," Mr Madley explained.
"He looked at the cover and thought, 'Oh, The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien.'
"He put it down, made a cup of coffee and got on the internet. And thought, 'Holy shamoley'.
"The next morning he knocked on my door."
Bargain Hunt star Richard Madley said only a few thousand were ever printed
The book was a 1937 first edition, second impression copy of Tolkien's children's fantasy novel.
Mr Madley said only a few thousand were published but the printer was bombed in the Blitz so even fewer survived.
Last year one sold at auction for more than £10,000 after being found among donations to an Oxfam shop.
Mr Madley called up a specialist book auctioneer friend for an estimate.
He asked if it had been "price clipped".
Sometimes book buyers snip the price from the slip cover to hide how much it was bought for.
The 7/6d price was still there, Mr Madley replied.
Mr Madley told BBC Radio Wales Behnaz Akghar: "He said, 'I would put an estimate of between £6,000 and £8,000 on it, that is my guide price'. He said, 'How much did it cost?'
"I said, '£1.50'. He said, 'You're joking'."
On assuring him it was not a joke, Mr Madley was told: "If it came on the open market it could exceed even the high estimate and push on to nearly five figures."
It's unclear whether the book will be sold or whether the owner will keep it, perhaps to leave it in his will to his children.
"Some will say it's better than money in the bank, in which case the owner of this book may decide that he might put it away for 10 years and bring it back on the market then," Mr Madley said. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-68145612 |
Welsh National Opera: Wales' top artists criticise cuts - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Sir Bryn Terfel, Katherine Jenkins, Michael Sheen and Ruth Jones have all hit out at funding cuts. | Wales | Sir Bryn Terfel is among the big names calling for something to be done
A host of Wales' most famous artists have criticised cuts to the Welsh National Opera (WNO).
A protest letter, signed by the likes of Sir Bryn Terfel, Katherine Jenkins, Michael Sheen and Ruth Jones, has been sent to First Minister Vaughan Gething.
It says funding cuts from Arts Council of Wales and Arts Council England (ACE) would be "devastating".
ACE said it had "unwavering" commitment to WNO and the Welsh government said it had £700m less to spend than in 2021.
Arts Council Wales has also been asked to comment.
WNO announced in April that it is cutting back its spring tour in 2025 and will not be performing in Llandudno or Bristol.
The funding received from ACE was cut by 35%, while Arts Council of Wales reduced its funding to WNO by 11.8% following its investment review announced in September 2023.
Singer Katherine Jenkins is also on the list of names who have hit out
The letter has been organised by Elizabeth Atherton, herself a singer and member of the Senedd's Cross Party Working Group for Music.
Other names included on it are actor Luke Evans, harpist Catrin Finch and singer Aled Jones.
It warns that WNO is "being forced to make its orchestra and chorus part-time".
It also calls the "potential dismantling of one of Wales' finest national institutions devastating for the nation".
Ms Atherton said: "Without emergency financial assistance Wales stands to lose its flagship arts organisation, a brand that represents Wales globally and attracts international talent to our shores."
She called on the Welsh government to "enter into talks with both representatives of WNO and the UK Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer to discuss how WNO's cross-border agreement for funding can be honoured."
Ms Atherton added that "an emergency package be put in place by both administrations to secure the future of the company".
The Welsh government said: "We have been clear our budget is up to £700m less in real terms than when it was set in 2021 and we have had to take extremely difficult decisions."
ACE said its commitment to opera and classical music is "unwavering" and is investing over £15.3m in the WNO over the next three years for its work in England.
"We know that funded organisations are currently faced with a challenging operating environment and we are working closely with them and being as flexible as we can," they said. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-68965830 |
We need to break taboo around death, end-of-life carer says - BBC News | 2024-05-06 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Abi Vance, who cared for a friend with terminal cancer, said "normalising" death might help people. | Wales | Abi Vance (left) cared for Erin Corner at the end of her life
More open conversations about dying should become the norm to better support people at the end of their lives, health experts and carers say.
It comes as charity Hospice UK launches a week-long campaign focusing on the language we use around death.
Abi Vance, who cared for a friend with terminal cancer, said "normalising" death and dying might help people.
"We have this really weird taboo around death," she said.
Ms Vance was an end-of-life carer for Erin Corner, who died of ampullary cancer in January, aged 31.
Ms Corner, who had also lost her youngest son Zac in a caravan fire in 2020, had written birthday and wedding cards for her two surviving sons before her death.
Abi said she offered practical help, but also helped Ms Corner navigate her end-of-life care.
Abi (right) became close with Erin after the death of her youngest son Zac
The 40-year-old, from Holyhead, Anglesey, said she and Erin, from Pontrhydfendigaid, Ceredigion, grew close following Zac's death.
"She knew how she wanted to die. We talked about what she wanted that to look like," Ms Vance said.
She said Ms Corner might have made some different decisions had she been better informed about things like sedation and terminal agitation, which can occur in the final days before death and leads to patients becoming restless and anxious.
"Lots of the stuff that happened, we had no idea that that was going to happen," she said.
"We need to talk about it, whether we like it or not."
"There should be far more discussion," Ms Vance said. "People don't know what to say. They draw back."
Conversations she had with nurses helped Ms Corner with the care she was receiving, Ms Vance said, but also made her realise how ill-informed many people are when it comes to palliative care.
Laura Hugman, clinical team manager at Tŷ Paul Sartori, which offers a hospice at home service in Pembrokeshire, agreed there was a taboo around death that was sometimes unhelpful.
"It's a challenge. I don't think we're very good at talking about dying at all," she said.
Laura Hugman says people are very reluctant to talk about death
How much people want to know about dying itself is "a real mix and a personal choice", she said.
She said it was key for people to know what services were available, particularly at a time when accessing a GP is not always easy.
Mark Taubert, a consultant in palliative medicine at Velindre University NHS Trust in Cardiff, said it was important to let patients know gently what might happen to them, but also how good planning could provide them with better care.
In his experience, 95% of patients want more detail about what will happen to them towards the end of their lives.
"Improving the language and getting the message across in a much clearer way is important," he said.
But the approach needs to be individual for every patient and every family, he added, with some patients less willing to hear certain details than others.
Dr Taubert says most patients want more information about what might lie ahead
"If they feel in control of the conversation about end-of-life care and the future... that can be very, very helpful," said Dr Taubert.
"You nearly need an end-of-life palliative care 'personal assistant' who is 'bespoke' to you."
Ms Vance said she and Erin also became acutely aware of this during Erin's final months, and is now in the process of setting up a charity that aims to create a UK-wide network of end-of-life companions and provide information.
Dr Taubert said there was a tendency among many patients and their loved ones towards constant positivity "battle" language, praising the patient for "fighting" and "being strong".
But such language can be problematic as people near the end of their lives, in his view.
"When you're tired, all your hair has fallen out, you're feeling nauseous and you're in pain, then the battle language I think lets you down a bit," he said.
"You need a trusted person to be able to confide in and to talk to and let out these things," he said.
Signalling to patients - even when they are not yet dying - that a conversation about end-of-life would be useful to have in the near future can help them prepare for it and get family members involved, he said.
The Hospice at Home nursing team at Tŷ Paul Sartori offers respite visits and information
Ms Hugman said Tŷ Paul Sartori nurses provide information to carers about nutrition and mobility in a patient's final days.
The charity, which helps 40 to 50 patients a week by offering respite visits, also makes sure discussions around managing pain relief take place, ensuring patients and carers understand the extent to which that will affect the patient's cognition.
Family members were often very protective of each other, Ms Hugman said, sometimes making it hard to have open conversations.
"People don't want to come near death and dying... people are never quite ready to think about it," she said.
Ultimately, there is no right or wrong way to look after a bereaved family, said Ms Hugman.
"It always comes as a shock when someone passes away, even if the family is completely prepared." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-68816628 |
Tense exchanges as Trump lawyer spars with Stormy Daniels in hush-money trial - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The former adult-film star provided a detailed, salacious account of her alleged sexual encounter with Mr Trump. | US & Canada | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The BBC's Nada Tawfik on what happened when Stormy Daniels took the stand
Donald Trump's lawyer attacked Stormy Daniels' credibility during heated cross-examination at the former president's hush money trial.
"Am I correct that you hate President Trump?" asked Susan Necheles during tense questioning in New York that at points descended into a shouting match.
"Yes," said the former adult-film star.
Ms Daniels' alleged sexual encounter with Mr Trump is at the centre of the former president's first criminal trial.
Mr Trump denies falsifying accounts to cover up a $130,000 hush-money payment to Ms Daniels.
Ms Daniels detailed time she says she spent with Mr Trump - an account that led to a combative cross-examination.
Ms Necheles, one of Mr Trump's defence lawyers, worked to paint Ms Daniels as driven by hatred and a desire for money. Mr Trump has denied that the sexual encounter with her occurred.
The exchanges between the two women grew increasingly heated - they were nearly shouting - when Ms Necheles accused Ms Daniels of trying to extort Mr Trump through the hush-money deal.
"False," Ms Daniels replied. "That's what you did, right?" Ms Necheles said. "False!" Ms Daniels repeated.
Ms Daniels' claim - that she received $130,000 (£103,000) from Mr Trump's personal lawyer in 2016 in exchange for her silence about having sex with him 10 years earlier - is at the centre of the historic New York trial, the first criminal trial of a former US president.
Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal paying Ms Daniels to hide the alleged sexual encounter. He has denied all wrongdoing.
Earlier in the day, under questioning from the prosecution, Ms Daniels provided a detailed picture of her alleged encounters with Mr Trump.
But the star witness was repeatedly reprimanded by the judge for her meandering answers.
"Ms Daniels, please just keep the answers short," Justice Juan Merchan said.
Adding to the tension, lawyers for Mr Trump objected to nearly every question prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked Ms Daniel about the alleged encounter. Justice Merchan mostly sustained the objections, siding with the defence.
As the day went on, however, prosecutors objected to several of Ms Necheles' questions on cross-examination. Those also were sustained.
BBC News reporters are in the Manhattan courtroom covering the historic first criminal trial of a former US president. You'll find their updates and analysis on the BBC news website and app, and across TV, radio and podcasts.
Ms Daniels was allowed to walk jurors through some of her alleged encounter with Mr Trump inside his Lake Tahoe hotel suite in 2006.
Mr Trump was wearing silk pyjamas, she said, and asked her several "business-like" questions about her family, her upbringing and her work in the adult film industry.
At one point, he compared Ms Daniels to his daughter Ivanka, Ms Daniels said, saying that people underestimated both women because they were beautiful.
Ms Daniels also explained how the hush-money deal came to be, saying she first became interested in selling her story once she heard someone else was planning to.
"I'd rather make the money than someone making the money off of me," she said.
By 2016, after Mr Trump had launched his campaign for president, Ms Daniels learned Mr Trump and his lawyer, Michael Cohen, wanted to buy her story. The deal would be a win-win, Ms Daniels testified, because she did not want her then-partner to find out about her alleged encounter with Mr Trump.
But Ms Daniels claimed she was not particularly motivated by the money, saying on the stand she "didn't care" about the sum she was eventually paid to her by Mr Cohen.
And Ms Daniels also laid out some of the specifics of the alleged deal, saying she would be forced to pay $1 million every time she violated the agreement and spoke out about her experience with Mr Trump.
Most of what Ms Daniels' shared on Tuesday is not new information, it's been shared by Ms Daniels in a number of interviews and in her memoir. But her story carries some added weight now, told face to face with Mr Trump as part of the unprecedented criminal charges brought against him. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68972977 |
Paris St-Germain 0-1 Borussia Dortmund (0-2 agg): Germans move into Champions League final at Wembley - BBC Sport | 2024-05-07 | null | Borussia Dortmund produce a fine away performance to beat Paris St-Germain and reach their first Champions League final since 2013. | null | Last updated on .From the section European Football
Borussia Dortmund produced a fine away performance to beat Paris St-Germain and reach their first Champions League final since 2013.
Dortmund held a 1-0 advantage following the first leg of the semi-final and doubled their lead when Mats Hummels was left unmarked five yards out to head in from Julian Brandt's left-wing corner.
That goal came just after PSG's Warren Zaire-Emery wasted a glorious chance as he volleyed against the post from close range early in the second half.
PSG hit the upright twice in the opening match in Germany and, after falling 2-0 behind on aggregate, again struck the post through Nuno Mendes.
The hosts thought they had been given a penalty and a potential lifeline when Italian referee Daniele Orsato pointed to the spot, only to instantly change his mind and rule that Hummels' foul on Ousmane Dembele had been just outside the area.
PSG have never been European champions, losing in the 2020 final, and Dortmund produced an excellent defensive display to frustrate the French title winners.
Kylian Mbappe, in his last European match for PSG before joining Real Madrid in the summer, had an effort deflected on to the crossbar, before Vitinha fired against the bar too - the sixth time overall his side had hit the frame of the goal in the tie.
The final will be at Wembley on Saturday, 1 June (20:00 BST) and could be an all-German affair, just as it was in May 2013 when Bayern Munich beat Dortmund 2-1 in London.
Bayern and Real are in the second 2024 semi-final and the first leg ended 2-2 in Germany, with the second leg in Spain on Wednesday (20:00 BST).
Dortmund are aiming to become European champions for the second time in their history after they defeated Juventus 3-1 in the 1997 final.
• None Paris St-Germain v Borussia Dortmund as it happened, plus reaction and analysis
Dortmund have had a disappointing season domestically as they sit fifth, 24 points behind champions Bayer Leverkusen with two Bundesliga matches remaining.
At the start of the European campaign, no-one could have expected Dortmund to be in the final after they were drawn in a tough group that consisted of PSG, AC Milan and Newcastle.
But Edin Terzic's side finished top, before they got past PSV Eindhoven in the last 16 and then eliminated Atletico Madrid in the quarter-finals.
And even after an excellent 1-0 home win over PSG on 1 May, thanks to Niclas Fullkrug's goal, many people expected the French side to overpower them in the second leg.
However, Dortmund's side, which included hard-working England winger Jadon Sancho, on loan from Manchester United after being frozen out by boss Erik ten Hag, produced a superb team effort at Parc des Princes.
In a wonderful, boisterous atmosphere, Dortmund were excellent in stopping the dangerous Mbappe scoring - the forward often up against two or three opponents - with the central defensive partnership of Hummels and Nico Schlotterbeck in fine form.
Mbappe had a volley saved by goalkeeper Gregor Kobel and only a superb sliding challenge from Hummels stopped Mbappe from finishing from Fabian Ruiz's pull-back.
PSG hit the woodwork four times in the second half but despite sustained late pressure, with Mbappe having a shot saved and Marquinhos heading narrowly wide, could not find the breakthrough as Dortmund reached the final.
• None Attempt missed. Lee Kang-In (Paris Saint Germain) left footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the left.
• None Attempt blocked. Achraf Hakimi (Paris Saint Germain) right footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked.
• None Attempt blocked. Vitinha (Paris Saint Germain) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Bradley Barcola.
• None Vitinha (Paris Saint Germain) hits the bar with a right footed shot from outside the box. Assisted by Ousmane Dembélé.
• None Attempt blocked. Vitinha (Paris Saint Germain) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.
• None Attempt saved. Kylian Mbappé (Paris Saint Germain) right footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the top centre of the goal. Assisted by Achraf Hakimi.
• None Attempt missed. Nuno Mendes (Paris Saint Germain) header from the left side of the six yard box misses to the right. Assisted by Ousmane Dembélé with a cross.
• None Attempt missed. Marquinhos (Paris Saint Germain) header from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the left. Assisted by Lee Kang-In with a cross following a set piece situation.
• None Lee Kang-In (Paris Saint Germain) wins a free kick on the right wing.
• None Attempt saved. Kylian Mbappé (Paris Saint Germain) right footed shot from the right side of the box is saved in the bottom right corner. Assisted by Achraf Hakimi. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68965987 |
US Army sergeant arrested in Russia accused of theft - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The sergeant, who was held on 2 May, is accused of stealing from a woman, reports the BBC's partner CBS. | US & Canada | A US Army soldier stationed in South Korea has been detained in Russia, the US military says.
The Russian foreign ministry said the charges were not related to "politics or espionage", but to a "purely domestic crime".
The 34-year-old was not on official travel when he was held on 2 May in the city of Vladivostok, in Russia's Far East.
Sgt Black had been in the process of changing duty stations from South Korea to Fort Cavazos in the US state of Texas, according to a statement from the US Army.
But instead of returning to the US, he travelled through China to Vladivostok for personal reasons, US Army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said in a statement.
According to Russian media, he was visiting a woman with whom he had a romantic relationship.
The soldier's mother, Melody Jones, confirmed to CBS that he was in Russia visiting his girlfriend.
"Please do not torture him [or] hurt him," Melody Jones said when asked about her message to the Russians.
Sgt Black enlisted as an infantryman in 2008 and was deployed to Iraq in 2009 and Afghanistan in 2013. He was most recently assigned to the Eighth Army, US Forces Korea at Camp Humphreys in South Korea.
He did not request official clearance and the defence department did not authorise his travel to China or Russia, the US Army said. There is no evidence he intended to remain in Russia.
The Russian interior ministry informed the US embassy in Moscow on 3 May that Sgt Black had been arrested a day earlier for theft of personal property.
He is being held at a pre-trial detention facility until his next hearing.
"The Army notified his family and the US Department of State is providing appropriate consular support to the Soldier in Russia," the US Army said in a statement on Monday.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters the US is "aware of this case and other matters related to Russia".
At the White House briefing on Monday, Mr Kirby said he could not provide more details.
Russia is holding two other Americans. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been detained since March 2023 on espionage charges.
Former US Marine Paul Whelan was accused of spying and sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020.
Both men maintain their innocence, and the US government says the charges against them are baseless. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68966860 |
Could assisted dying be coming to Scotland? - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | MSPs will get the chance to make Scotland the first part of the UK to let people legally end their lives. | Scotland | MSP Liam McArthur hopes his bill will be voted on in 2025
Scotland could become the first UK nation to provide terminally-ill people with assistance to end their lives if a bill that has been introduced at Holyrood is approved.
Supporters of the legislation say it would ease suffering.
Opponents worry that some terminally-ill people could feel under pressure to end their lives.
Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill is drafted by the Lib Dem MSP, Liam McArthur.
He expects it to be debated this autumn.
The bill was published on Thursday and will potentially be voted on next year.
The Scottish government says ministers and SNP backbenchers will not be instructed how to vote, as the matter is an issue of individual conscience.
First Minister Humza Yousaf has indicated that he is likely to vote against the bill, which is also opposed by the Church of Scotland, the Catholic Church in Scotland, and the Scottish Association of Mosques.
Under the proposals, a patient could only request medical assistance to end their life if they had a terminal illness and had been ruled mentally fit to make the decision by two doctors.
Mr McArthur says "the terminal illness would need to be advanced and progressive" and the medics would have to ensure there was "no coercion."
In addition, the patient must be aged 16 or over, a resident of Scotland for at least 12 months, and must administer the life-ending medication themselves.
In Scotland, it is not illegal to attempt suicide but helping someone take their own life could lead to prosecution for crimes such as murder, culpable homicide or offences under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
In England and Wales, the Suicide Act 1961 makes it an offence to encourage or assist the suicide or attempted suicide of another person. In 2015, the House of Commons decided against changing the law by 330 votes to 118.
In Northern Ireland, a similar offence is set out in the Criminal Justice Act 1966.
A number of countries have legalised some form of assisted dying - Dignity in Dying says more than 200 million people around the world have access.
This includes Switzerland, perhaps best known for its Dignitas facility, Australia, Canada, Spain, Colombia and 11 states in the US where it is known as "physician-assisted dying". Laws vary by country.
This will be the third time that the Scottish Parliament has considered the issue.
In 2010, MSPs rejected Margo MacDonald's End of Life Assistance Bill by 85 votes to 16.
The independent MSP, who had Parkinson's Disease, died in 2014 and the cause was taken up by Patrick Harvie of the Scottish Greens.
The following year, his Assisted Suicide Bill was rejected by 82 votes to 36.
The title of Mr McArthur's bill — Assisted Dying rather than Assisted Suicide — reflects a change in approach from campaigners.
Critics such as Dr Fiona MacCormick of the Association for Palliative Medicine (APM) say the new terminology is "harmful and unhelpful," adding, "they've used very euphemistic language to talk about suicide."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Dr Fiona MacCormick says she does not believe the answer to suffering is the end of the sufferer's life
Mr McArthur says he would "strongly disagree," because "we're talking about people with a terminal illness, and the fact they are going to die has already been established."
The MSP for Orkney Islands believes there has been a significant "mood shift" among his fellow parliamentarians since the issue was last debated and is hopeful that his proposal will be approved.
A new poll, carried out by Opinium Research for the campaign group Dignity in Dying, suggests clear public support for the proposal, with 78% of respondents in Scotland saying they supported "making it legal for someone to seek 'assisted dying' in the UK."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Gillie Davison is among the supporters of the legislation after her husband Steve died of throat cancer last April.
Gillie Davison is among those supporters - her husband Steve died of throat cancer last April, at the age of 56.
Ms Davison, from Hawick in the Scottish Borders, says even high-quality palliative care did not ease his suffering in the final days and hours.
"It wasn't a good death because he was distressed and he was upset," she explains.
"It wasn't what he wanted. He wanted that choice."
She believes an assisted dying bill would have allowed her husband to "go to sleep" peacefully at home and could prevent other families from enduring a similarly "devastating" experience in future.
Changing the law, she says, would be "compassionate and kind."
But Dr MacCormick says she is concerned about the potential for inaccurate diagnosis and prognosis, undetected coercion, and fluctuating mental capacity in seriously-ill patients.
"As a palliative care doctor, when I see patients who are suffering, I don't see the answer to their suffering as being to end the life of the sufferer," she says.
But some terminally-ill patients say they would find the option reassuring even if they did not use it.
Mandie Malcolm hopes a change in law would let her stop worrying about "dying a brutal death"
In 2015, at the age of 26, Mandie Malcolm from Falkirk was diagnosed with breast cancer which had spread to other parts of her body.
She was told that her life expectancy was two to five years.
Now 34, Ms Malcolm is still alive thanks to advances in cancer treatment but, she says, she lies awake at night worrying about how her life will end.
Until starting a new drug, she says, she was "bedridden for weeks and in huge amounts of pain.
"I really worry about my death. I worry that I'm going to suffer, horrifically, basically, and it does scare me," she explains.
Ms Malcolm is strongly in favour of the assisted dying law, which she says would mean she could stop worrying about "dying a brutal death" and "enjoy the good times."
"It would mean everything to me and my family," she adds.
But campaigners against the measure point to laws enacted in Belgium and Canada where qualifying criteria have been loosened over time, leading to a sharp rise in the number of "assisted" deaths.
Mr McArthur says his proposed law is not modelled on those "permissive and expansive models" but on places such as the US state of Oregon where "the eligibility criteria has not changed at all" since becoming law in 1997.
He is supported by the broadcaster and campaigner, Dame Esther Rantzen, who recently revealed that she was considering travelling to Switzerland - where assisted suicide has been legal since 1942 - to die after being diagnosed with incurable lung cancer.
She says: "I want to congratulate the Scottish Parliament for prioritising this debate so that they can carefully consider this crucial issue and scrutinise this historic Assisted Dying Bill."
Audrey Birt would prefer to see greater investment in palliative care
Audrey Birt from Edinburgh also has terminal cancer, the latest of five breast cancer diagnoses over 30 years, and has spent the past 12 years "in and out of hospital."
But she does not want assistance to end her life and has concerns that, if the law is changed, some patients might feel that they must do so to help their families.
"In Scotland," she says, "we don't like to be a burden.
"That's the aspect I worry about — that there may be pressure," she explains.
Instead Ms Birt, who is 68 years old, says there should be increased investment in palliative care, which she receives at St Columba's Hospice in Edinburgh.
"After coming here and being more aware of what's on offer, I do wonder if it was available to everyone, would that take away some of the fear that is behind the bill?" she asks.
Helen Malo of the charity Hospice UK says her organisation is neutral on the bill but wants better funding of palliative care.
Hospices support more than 21,000 people in Scotland each year, she says. But they are struggling, with only a third of their funding coming from the state, the rest from charitable donations, and rising costs.
"One in four people do not get access to specialist palliative care," adds Ms Malo, who says that, as the nation ages, demand is expected to increase by a fifth by 2040.
"There are fewer specialist palliative care doctors in Scotland than there are MSPs," says Dr MacCormick of the APM.
Without adequate palliative care, she says, the worry is that assisted suicide "is not just a choice. It becomes a suggestion, which then becomes an expectation and that our vulnerable patients are at risk."
Supporters of the bill say they too want more funding for hospices and are prepared for a debate about how and if such a commitment could be woven into the bill.
They also know that moral, religious and practical objections must be overcome if the momentous change they propose is to become law. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-68674769 |
King has no time to see Prince Harry on UK visit due to 'full programme' - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The duke has arrived in the UK for an event which marks a decade of the Invictus Games. | UK | Prince Harry speaks at an event marking 10 years of the Invictus Games on Tuesday
Prince Harry has arrived in the UK but will not see King Charles during his visit marking a decade of the Invictus Games.
A spokesman for the Duke of Sussex said this was due to his father's "full programme" and that he "hopes to see him soon".
Prince William will also not be at an Invictus event on Wednesday.
Harry was last in the UK in February to visit the King soon after he was diagnosed with cancer.
"The duke of course is understanding of his father's diary of commitments and various other priorities and hopes to see him soon," said a statement from Prince Harry's spokesman.
Buckingham Palace is not commenting on the duke's visit.
Prince Harry is in the UK to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games, a competition for wounded and injured service men and women, both serving and veterans.
There will be a service of thanksgiving at St Paul's Cathedral in London, at which Prince Harry will give a reading and actor Damian Lewis will recite a poem.
But so far no other senior royals have been confirmed as guests at the service - with King Charles and Prince William not attending and Catherine, the Princess of Wales, also absent as she is undergoing cancer treatment.
After his visit to London, Prince Harry will visit Nigeria with Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. The couple were invited by Nigeria's chief of defence staff, who met Prince Harry during the Invictus Games held last year in Germany.
Birmingham in the UK and Washington DC in the US have been shortlisted as possible venues for Invictus in 2027.
Last week, the King began a return to public engagements, having had to avoid crowds and public meetings after it was revealed that he had an unspecified form of cancer.
The treatment for that cancer is still continuing, but the King's medical advisers have allowed him to start a gradual return to public engagements.
It remains uncertain how many of the traditional royal summer events the King will be able to attend.
Sign up here to get the latest royal stories and analysis straight to your inbox every week with our Royal Watch newsletter. Those outside the UK can sign up here. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68971455 |
Israel orders Gazans to evacuate part of Rafah for 'limited' operation - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The military says it is telling about 100,000 people to leave ahead of a 'limited' operation. | Middle East | Palestinian civilians were seen leaving eastern Rafah after the Israeli military issued its evacuation order
Israel's military says it has begun ordering Palestinians to leave parts of eastern Rafah ahead of a "limited" operation in the southern Gaza city.
About 100,000 people are being directed to head for an "expanded humanitarian area" in Khan Younis and al-Mawasi.
After seven months of war, Israel says it must take Rafah to defeat Hamas.
But the UN and US warn that an assault on the city, where more than a million displaced Palestinians are sheltering, could have catastrophic consequences.
A senior Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, told the Reuters news agency that the Israeli order was "a dangerous escalation that will have consequences".
Israeli air strikes in Rafah reportedly killed at least 19 Palestinians overnight, after rockets launched from the area by Hamas fighters killed four Israeli soldiers at the nearby Kerem Shalom border crossing - the key entry point for humanitarian aid into Gaza. The crossing was closed following the attack.
There have also been reports of Israeli attacks on Rafah, hours after the evacuation order was issued.
Meanwhile, the latest efforts for a new ceasefire and hostage release deal have stalled, with both Israel and Hamas saying they would not give ground on key demands. Hamas wants a permanent end to the war, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he cannot accept.
Mediators said they were continuing their efforts.
In an initial briefing to journalists on Monday morning, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Lt Col Nadav Shoshani stressed that the operation planned in Rafah was of "limited scope".
He said that no timeframe had been announced and that the evacuation affecting an estimated 100,000 people would be carried out in "a gradual way".
The IDF is using text messages, flyers and social media to tell people to move.
One of the Arabic flyers dropped by aircraft features a map that identifies nine area blocks in south-eastern Rafah, where the IDF says it will "be operating against the terrorist organisations". They include al-Shuka, al-Salam, al-Janina and al-Yarmouk, as well as farmland near Kerem Shalom.
The flyer instructs residents of those areas to evacuate immediately and head towards an area stretching north along the Mediterranean coast from al-Mawasi - a thin strip of agricultural land that has long been an IDF-designated "humanitarian zone" - to Khan Younis and the central town of Deir al-Balah.
The IDF said the expanded humanitarian area included "field hospitals, tents and increased amounts of food, water, medication and additional supplies".
"An ongoing situation assessment will guide the gradual movement of civilians in the specified areas, to the humanitarian area," it added.
Such messages are unlikely to allay the fears of those living in the city that a wider offensive is on the cards.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which runs the largest humanitarian organisation in Gaza, said the "consequences would be devastating for 1.4 million people" in Rafah.
The organisation added in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that it would not evacuate and would maintain a presence in the city "as long as possible and will continue providing life-saving aid to people".
Ghada el-Kurd, a Palestinian mother-of-two who has been displaced six times over the last four months, told the BBC that she was sheltering only 15 minutes away from one of the areas included in the evacuation order, but was staying put for now.
"I'm so confused, just to be honest. I have no place to go. This was the last place I know," she said.
"If I want to come back to Khan Younis, there is no place - it is all destroyed. [As for] areas of al-Mawasi, they are crowded and I cannot any more live inside a tent."
"Regarding Deir al-Balah and Nuseirat [refugee camp], still there is a lot of air strikes there... and it is a very dangerous area."
James Elder, a spokesman for the UN children's agency, Unicef, who was in Gaza last month, said families now had no choice but to head towards areas that were already overcrowded and lacked basic facilities.
"They will move because they will move or be bombed. But they will move to places where there is no water - not a little bit of water, but no water - and no sanitation," he told the BBC.
For months, Mr Netanyahu has been insisting that victory against Hamas cannot be won without a full-scale offensive in Rafah.
Israel says Rafah harbours four remaining Hamas battalions, amounting to thousands of fighters.
"The EU, with the international community, can and must act to prevent such scenario," he wrote on X.
US President Joe Biden spoke with Mr Netanyahu abut Rafah by phone on Monday. No details of the call have yet been released.
Officials from Israel and its closest ally, the US, have been holding meetings to discuss alternative, more focused plans. It is not clear if the new evacuation orders are part of those.
In Israel, some families of hostages expressed their fear about what a Rafah operation might mean for their loved ones.
"We are very much afraid that the IDF entering Rafah will risk the lives not only of innocent people, not only of soldiers, but also of some hostages," said Gil Dickmann, whose two cousins were taken hostage on 7 October, one of whom was released and the other remains in captivity.
The current war began when Hamas fighters stormed into southern Israel on 7 October, killing about 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages.
The Israeli response has seen intense bombardment of all parts of Gaza from the air and a ground invasion that has seen troops take control of most of the territory before withdrawing most troops. More than 34,735 Palestinians have been killed, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
A deal agreed in November saw Hamas release 105 hostages in return for a week-long ceasefire and some 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Israel says 128 hostages remain unaccounted for in Gaza, at least 34 of whom are presumed dead. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68964103 |
Trump hush-money trial: Trump lawyer calls for mistrial over Stormy Daniels' testimony - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The adult-film star is testifying about an alleged sexual encounter with Donald Trump - which he denies. | US & Canada | Thanks for joining our live coverage on an extraordinary day in court, with adult-film star Stormy Daniels taking the stand.
It was a tense courtroom, with Daniels warned to dial back her comments at times. Prosecutors were also told to limit their questions regarding the salacious details of her alleged sexual encounter with Trump (which Trump has denied ever took place).
Here's our full wrap of what happened in court today.
This page was edited by Tiffany Wertheimer, Lisa Lambert, Brandon Livesay and Phil McCausland. The writers were Sam Hancock and Sean Seddon, and we had Madeline Halpert and Kayla Epstein in court.
Court doesn't sit on Wednesday, so we'll be back on Thursday, when Stormy Daniels will once again take to the stand to continue her testimony. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-68955286 |
Romance fraudster defrauded women of £80,000 - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Peter Gray, from West Yorkshire, took out loans in the names of women he met on dating app Tinder. | Leeds & West Yorkshire | Peter Gray applied for loans using personal information that he stole from the women
A group of women are warning others to do background checks on partners met through dating apps after loans worth thousands of pounds were taken out in their names by the same conman.
Peter Gray, 35, who met the women on Tinder, was jailed after defrauding four women out of about £80,000.
One victim said Gray, from West Yorkshire, "totally ruined my life" and left her with significant trust issues.
Tinder said it had "implemented various ways to warn users of potential scams".
Gray, of Mirfield, was sentenced to 56 months in prison in February and given restraining orders in relation to the victims.
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live's Clare McDonnell, Jessica - not her real name - described how she met Gray on the app in 2018 after coming out of a six-year relationship.
Although he wasn't her usual type, he was "a good listener and everything I needed at the time", she recalled.
On their third date, Jessica was at his apartment and got up to use the bathroom.
"I left my bag on his dining table, he went in my bag and took pictures of my driving licence and both my bank cards," she said.
She later discovered loans up to the value of £9,000 were taken out in her name.
Gray developed close connections that would help him commit offences for his own personal financial gain
Despite Gray offering to pay back the money over time, Jessica went to the police.
"I didn't want to be tied to this guy for five years because I barely even knew him," she said.
Hannah, another woman who met Gray on Tinder, described him as being initially "calming and reassuring," but something "didn't sit right".
A week later, after Hannah decided to call the relationship off, she received an acceptance letter for a loan of £20,000 in her name.
The pair rekindled their relationship a few months later after Gray showered her with gifts and declarations of love, however she later ended it once again.
"I think the alarm bells and red flags were just waving high," she said.
Across all of the relationships, Gray developed close connections that would help him commit offences for his own personal financial gain.
When Hannah found out she was pregnant, her sister looked into Gray's past and tracked down one of his ex-partners, who warned her of his hidden past.
"There's no way that I'm going to let a child be brought up anywhere near such a vile human," Hannah said.
"My world had just literally broken apart in front of my eyes in that half an hour conversation."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Victim Hannah and sister Natalie, told BBC 5 Live of their reaction to the experience
Gray repeated the pattern once again when he matched with Elizabeth - not her real name - in 2020.
He sent flowers to her home, despite Elizabeth never revealing where she lived.
Elizabeth said: "Red flags popped up, but I just kept thinking, stop being silly, you need to be going for a guy that treats you nice."
Two days before moving into her new house, Elizabeth's mortgage was pulled after Gray used her driving licence to secure a loan of about £10,000 in her name.
Jessica said Gray's actions had "totally ruined my life" and said she's stopped taking ID and bank cards out on dates.
"I don't trust anybody I meet," she said.
Elizabeth said: "You're constantly thinking, is this person who they say they are or are they not?"
Two of the women individually used the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme, also known as Clare's Law, which gives people the right to ask police for a background check on their partner.
In a statement, Tinder says it has "implemented various ways to warn users of potential scams"
In a statement, Tinder said it "acts to help prevent and warn users of potential scams or fraud by using AI tools to detect words and phrases and proactively intervene".
"We have implemented various ways to warn users of potential scams or fraud, from in-app features to pop-up messages and education," a spokesperson said.
"All users can request that their match be photo-verified prior to messaging. We also partner with non-governmental organizations and local authorities to promote awareness of online fraud."
You can hear the full interviews on BBC Radio 5 Live on Bank Holiday Monday, or listen to the 5MinsOn podcast 'The Women Conned By A Romance Fraudster' on BBC Sounds.
Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-68942415 |
Legoland Windsor: Baby who suffered cardiac arrest at theme park dies - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A woman was arrested on suspicion of neglecting a child to cause unnecessary injury, police say. | Berkshire | The baby suffered a cardiac arrest at the theme park on Thursday
A five-month-old baby seriously injured in a "neglect incident" at a theme park has died in hospital, police said.
The boy was taken to hospital after suffering a cardiac arrest at Legoland Windsor on Thursday and died on Monday.
A woman, 27, from Witham, Essex, was arrested on suspicion of neglecting a child to cause unnecessary injury. She was released on bail until 26 July.
Police want to speak to anyone who was queueing for the Coastguard HQ ride on Thursday between 11:30 BST and 12:45.
Det Con Zoe Eele, from Thames Valley Police's child abuse investigation unit, said: "Firstly, our thoughts are with the family of the boy who sadly died in hospital after suffering a cardiac arrest. We are supporting them as best we can at this extremely difficult time.
"We have made an arrest in relation to this incident and are not looking for anyone else as a suspect.
"I would ask for the public to please avoid speculation about the incident and to respect the boy's family at this deeply upsetting time."
A Legoland Windsor spokesperson said staff were "incredibly saddened to hear this news and our heartfelt condolences go out to all those affected" and they would support police with their investigation.
On Sunday, a park spokesperson said its first aid team provided "immediate care until the emergency services arrived".
They said the baby was taken from the park in an ambulance for further treatment.
"We'd like to thank the emergency services for their swift response, and our guests for their cooperation," they added.
Follow BBC South on Facebook, X, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk or via WhatsApp on 0808 100 2240.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-68969750 |
Legoland Windsor: Police probe baby's cardiac arrest at theme park - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A woman is arrested on suspicion of neglecting a five-month-old boy who is in a critical condition. | Berkshire | The baby suffered a cardiac arrest at the theme park on Thursday
A woman has been arrested on suspicion of neglecting a five-month-old boy who suffered a cardiac arrest at a theme park.
The baby is in a critical condition in hospital following the incident at Legoland Windsor at about 13:00 BST on Thursday, police said.
A 27-year-old woman from Witham, Essex, was arrested on suspicion of neglecting a child to cause unnecessary injury.
She has been released on bail until 26 July.
Det Con Zoe Eele, of Thames Valley Police's Child Abuse Investigation Unit, said: "Firstly, our thoughts are with the family of the boy who is in a critical condition in hospital after suffering a cardiac arrest.
"We are working closely with the team at Legoland Windsor Resort but would like to speak to anyone who have information about this incident, specifically anyone who was queueing for the Coastguard HQ boat ride between around 11.30am and 12:45pm.
"I would ask for the public to please avoid speculation about the incident and to respect the boy's family at this deeply upsetting time."
Police said they are not looking for further suspects in relation to the incident.
In a statement, the theme park said: "On Thursday, a young guest was taken ill... and our fully trained First Aid team administered immediate care until the emergency services arrived.
"We will continue to support Thames Valley Police with their ongoing investigation."
Follow BBC South on Facebook, X, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk or via WhatsApp on 0808 100 2240.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-68962869 |
‘Sustainable calm’ proposal splits Israel and Hamas - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Israel says it has four issues with the draft ceasefire deal - including an end to war. | Middle East | Israel wants to be able to continue fighting Hamas, while the group is seeking a permanent ceasefire (file image)
After months of stalemate, the search for peace in Gaza has reached a critical stage. UN chief Antonio Guterres says it is a "decisive moment for the Palestinian and Israeli people and for the fate of the entire region".
There seems to be common ground between most sides about the principles: a ceasefire should take place alongside the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. Various draft agreements have been drawn up, setting out a complex process of how it would all work.
There is some disagreement over the detail of what should happen to whom and when and in what order. Israeli officials say, for example, that its female soldiers should be released earlier than envisaged.
They also say the texts should be clearer that the first 33 hostages to be released must be alive and are worried about not having a veto over which Palestinian prisoners would be released.
These are issues that could potentially be surmounted through negotiation.
But there is a more fundamental sticking point about a core principle that may be harder to get past and that is when the war should end.
The opening words of the draft agreement - supported by Hamas - declares that there should be a "temporary cessation of military operations between the two parties". This is largely unproblematic. Six weeks would pass while people are released, Israeli forces withdraw from some areas, displaced Gazans would be able to return to what if anything is left of their homes.
But then stage two would begin. The draft agreement then talks about a "return to sustainable calm", which it defines as "a permanent cessation of military and hostile operations".
It is this that seems to be unacceptable to Israel's government. In a statement, the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "Israel will not allow Hamas to restore its evil rule in the Gaza Strip, Israel will not allow it to restore its military capabilities to continue striving for our destruction. Israel cannot accept a proposal that endangers the security of our citizens and the future of our country."
In other words, Israel's government wants the right to continue taking the fight to Hamas in the long run. By contrast, Hamas wants a permanent ceasefire.
What is not clear is whether there is a way for Qatari, Egyptian and American negotiators to find a middle path through this.
It may be that all of this is part of the negotiation. Public statements are frequently used in negotiations to put pressure on the other side.
The announcement by Hamas that it supports a particular draft could be an attempt to push Israel into making concessions and divide it from its allies. Israel's warnings about an imminent military operation in Rafah could be an attempt to extract better terms from Hamas.
But the question of whether any ceasefire is permanent or not looks hard to square with clever diplomatic language.
Israel has agreed to send a delegation to Cairo but with modest ambitions - not to hammer out a deal but "to exhaust the possibility of reaching an agreement under conditions acceptable to Israel".
Much will depend on what the US government decides.
So far, US spokespeople have fallen over themselves to avoid making any comment on the deal Hamas has signed up to. They have limited themselves to asserting that an agreement is still "achievable" and to warning firmly against a military operation in Rafah.
That is because if the US were to throw its weight behind the current text, then Mr Netanyahu might be forced to choose between his main ally and the ultra-nationalist hardliners propping up his government who oppose any compromise.
Mr Netanyahu has survived many crises in his political career by postponing difficult decisions.
But President Biden has it in his gift to force Israel's leader to make a choice that he might rather avoid. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68971818 |
Coronation anniversary marked by 41-gun salute - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | null | It's one year since King Charles and Queen Camilla were crowned in a lavish, historic ceremony. | null | Military celebrations in London marked the first anniversary of the coronation of the King and Queen.
The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery fired a 41-Gun Royal Salute for King Charles and Queen Camilla outside Buckingham Palace. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68964598 |
The moment pastor survives shooting attempt during sermon - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | null | Pennsylvania pastor Glenn Germany escaped injury when gunman's firearm failed to discharge. | null | A gunman attempted to shoot pastor Glenn Germany during his sermon at Jesus' Dwelling Place Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Sunday.
Officials identified the gunman as 26-year-old Bernard Polite. Mr Germany escaped with his life because Mr Polite's firearm failed to discharge.
After Mr Polite's arrest, police found another man fatally shot at his North Braddock home. The victim was identified as Derek Polite, 56. Police have not yet commented on Bernard Polite's relationship with him. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68924801 |
Rylan Clark and Rob Rinder: ‘The tour that helped mend our broken hearts’ - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | After their divorces, the presenters found a life-changing trip helped them move on with their lives. | Entertainment & Arts | Having both faced the break-up of their marriages in recent years, presenters Rylan Clark and Rob Rinder found a life-changing tour the inspiration they needed to move on with their lives.
"This trip is part of my restart in life," says Rylan Clark positively.
With close friend and travelling companion, Rob Rinder, he has embarked on a tour of Italy for a new BBC Two series, retracing the steps of the Grand Tourists of the past.
"We've both been through painful divorces recently and are ready for the next chapter," says Clark, who rose to fame on the X Factor and has since become a popular TV and radio presenter.
The Grand Tour, the original gap year, was a rite of passage for the young male nobility of the 18th Century, who would travel to Europe to discover its culture, architecture - and themselves.
In the series, Clark and Rinder, who share the same divorce lawyer, travelled to Venice, Florence and Rome following in the footsteps of one of the most famous of Grand Tourists, romantic poet Lord Byron, on the 200th anniversary of his death.
Clark and Rinder travelled first to Venice, known as the city of love
Byron - like Clark and Rinder - was also in the public eye and divorced. He journeyed to Italy to escape from the mounting pressure of life. It's something Clark can identify with. The culmination of his marriage breaking down after six years, and the knock-on effect of stopping work for the first time in 10 years, sent Clark into a "downward spiral", he says.
"I tried to finish myself off. I didn't eat. I went down to 9 stone (57kg). I'm 6ft 4in (1.9m), I looked horrendous," he says.
Grateful for everything he has built, having grown up in a council house in Stepney Green, east London, with not very much, Clark says he would give it all up not to have put his mother, Linda, through the trauma of that difficult time.
"She's a 70-year-old woman and she had to watch her successful son literally disintegrate."
He adds that starting afresh - going out on dates when you're in the public eye - brings with it its own difficulties.
"I always thought when I was younger, imagine being known, you'd probably be able to get anyone you want. It's the complete opposite," he says.
Clark and Rinder visited the Colosseum, a Roman amphitheatre where gladiators would do battle
Rinder, a criminal barrister who rose to prominence as a TV judge, had been with his partner for 11 years, but his relationship broke down four years into their marriage.
For him, one of the hardest things to do is live in the moment, rather than in his head.
"Recently, I went on a date and I thought it had gone rather well, and he said, 'Well I did rather feel like I was being cross-examined'," he says.
"I'm one of life's great overthinkers, it stops me doing everything. It stops me finding joy, it stops me taking risks."
On his arrival in Italy, Byron fell in love. Like the original tourists on the Grand Tour, Rinder and Clark met up with prospective love interests too, taking themselves out of their comfort zone to date Venetian men. But they also studied the art, architecture and culture of the historic Italian cities.
"I wouldn't say I know a lot about art," says Clark. "I come from quite a working-class background and art wasn't the thing that we had hanging up in our houses. It would be fake chandeliers from down the market - that was our family heirlooms."
Rinder comes from a working-class background too and was brought up by his single-parent mother.
"Opera wasn't on the buffet - or ballet or books," he says. "Really for me, education - be it in the music or the arts - it was the way out."
Although Rinder has studied art, the Grand Tour was not just about him educating Clark, but Clark educating him, he says.
"Every painting we've looked at, some of which I've seen multiple times, he's found something new and beautiful in it," he says.
The presenters experimented with some of the fashion of the day
For Clark, the tour has given him the confidence to not feel intimidated to talk about art any more. He has made no secret, he says, of the fact he didn't have that much confidence in himself.
Just as carnival guests in Venice would wear masks to conceal their identities, Clark says he too wears a mask every day in the form of make-up.
"I'm very much two people," says Clark. "So everyone knows me as Rylan - has a laugh, big teeth, wears a bit of make-up - a lot of make-up - and is just that presenter off the telly - or that idiot off the telly.
"Whereas actually at home, I'm Ross. Ross is who I grew up as, Rylan's my job. Ross is the one that sits at home with a tracksuit on and a Peroni in the hand, so I am very different."
He says the make-up he wears is his suit of armour.
"So you can take the piss out of my teeth, you can say I look orange, but at the end of the day when I wipe it all off, Ross isn't bruised, Rylan takes the battering, that's how I deal with it."
For Clark, who loves design and says he wanted to be an architect growing up, the trip has given him the chance to redefine himself.
"When you're 'something', people want you to be that 'something' and stay in your lane, sometimes it's nice to indicate, slip over," he says.
It does feel like he and Rinder have had a renaissance of their own on the trip.
"I've got no limits now, nothing fazes me," says Clark. "I'm willing to try anything - or anyone."
"I'm 34 and I'm young enough to start again when it comes down to my personal life."
The experience has been just as liberating for Rinder.
"I feel like I've learnt living life can't just be in books, it's got to be real," he says.
"You can't write about love, or paint about it, unless you've done it."
Rob and Rylan's Grand Tour starts on Sunday 12 May at 21:00 BST on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer.
If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this story, support and advice is available via the BBC Action Line | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68932989 |
Humza Yousaf formally resigns as Scotland's first minister - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The former SNP leader has signed a letter to the King after John Swinney was elected as the party's new leader. | Scotland politics | Humza Yousaf has signed a letter to the King tendering his resignation as Scotland's first minister after John Swinney was elected as the SNP's new leader.
Mr Swinney, 60, is expected to become first minister later.
The former deputy first minister has pledged to write a "new chapter" in the party's history.
Mr Yousaf last week said he "paid the price" for the way he ended the power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens.
In his letter to King Charles, the Glasgow Pollok MSP said his resignation would take effect from the start of parliamentary business on Tuesday.
Mr Yousaf said it had been a pleasure to serve the King and the people of Scotland as first minister.
"Throughout my time as first minister, I have been most grateful for your counsel and the kindness you have shown to both Nadia and I," he added in his letter to the King.
Mr Yousaf will make a final speech to MSPs later before they vote to choose Scotland's seventh first minister in 25 years.
After tendering his resignation he described the role of first minister as a "phenomenal honour".
Mr Yousaf said: "As a young Muslim boy, born and raised in Scotland, I could never have dreamt that one day I would have the privilege of leading my country - people who looked like me, were not in positions of political influence, let alone leading governments when I was younger."
The former SNP leader added he was proud of achievements such as the council tax freeze and the removal of peak rail fares.
Mr Yousaf concluded: "From the backbenches of the Scottish parliament, I will continue to champion the rights and the voices of those who are often not heard, be they at home or abroad."
Mr Yousaf was sworn in as Nicola Sturgeon's successor last March after a narrow win over ex-finance secretary Kate Forbes in the SNP leadership contest.
During his first year in the post and he faced challenges ranging from the police investigation into SNP finances to ex-health secretary Michael Matheson's £11,000 data bill.
The Green-led deposit return scheme and the highly protected marine areas scheme were both ditched. The Scottish government also lost a court battle with the UK government over its flagship gender recognition reforms, which led to the legislation being shelved.
Mr Yousaf's leadership came to an end after he scrapped the power-sharing Bute House Agreement with the Scottish Greens, which left the SNP with a minority in parliament.
Facing motions of no confidence in him and his government, Mr Yousaf confirmed he was standing down last Monday.
In his resignation speech, he said he had "clearly underestimated" the hurt he had caused the Greens by ending the agreement.
John Swinney has been elected as the new SNP leader
John Swinney was the only candidate to replace Mr Yousaf as new SNP leader.
The Perthshire North MSP, who previously led the SNP between 2000 and 2004, told supporters on Monday that the party In a had been through a "rough time".
He said he did not intend to reinstate the power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens and would aim to lead a "moderate centre-left" minority government.
Mr Swinney is expected to be chosen as Scotland's new first minister later on Tuesday.
He will need to be sworn in at the Court of Session in Edinburgh before officially taking up the post.
After the formalities Mr Swinney can then get on with the business of appointing his cabinet, before going on to to take First Minister's Questions on Thursday. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-68968015 |
Bushmills nail attack: Community's shock at 'awful' assault in car park - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Members of the public condemn "absolutely awful" and "cruel" attack on a man in a car park on Sunday. | Northern Ireland | The PSNI said a man has been left with potentially life-changing injuries after he was nailed to a fence
People in a County Antrim town have expressed shock at an "absolutely awful" attack in which a man's hands were nailed to a fence.
The victim, who is in his 20s, was taken to hospital after being found in a car park in Bushmills in the early hours of Sunday.
He had a nail driven through each hand.
Police described the attack as having levels of "ultraviolence" while an assembly member for the area said it was "barbaric".
Anne McIlroy, from Portballintrae, who was shopping in the town on Tuesday, said "nobody deserves that", adding it was "a very cruel thing to do".
"I was shocked, this is a beautiful village we have and there's no need for this," she added.
Anne McIlroy, from Portballintrae, expressed her disgust at the attack
Police have said paramilitary involvement is one key line of inquiry.
Two vans, one belonging to the injured man, were found on fire in the car park near Dundarave Park.
Graffiti on nearby public toilets has been linked to the assault and arson.
Earlier on Tuesday, TUV leader Jim Allister said those responsible for the attack intended to "stamp their terror upon the area".
Mr Allister, an assembly member for the area, said it was "barbaric".
"The lawful authorities are the people to deal with reported crimes and now, I trust, that the lawful authorities will hunt down those who inflicted this upon this person and upon the community," he told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme.
Two vans were found on fire in the car park near Dundarave Park in Bushmills
"It wasn't just upon him, it was upon the whole community."
Mr Allister said the attack appeared to have "the hallmarks of paramilitarism".
"The people of Bushmills like anywhere else are effectively and very committedly law-abiding, they want to live their lives in peace and they want anyone who wants to disturb that off their backs and why wouldn't they?"
He added that "it is imperative that instead of a dearth of policing on the ground, we have a sufficiency of policing and that I think is what has been missing, particularly in many more rural parts of Northern Ireland and it needs to be attended to".
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has been contacted for comment.
Dundarave Park, where a man was left nailed to a fence at the weekend, is clearly a residential area, with a play park just around the corner from where the attack happened.
The fence, which is it at the back of a house in the estate, remains unfixed and a vehicle which was burnt out in a nearby car park remains close to the scene.
The nearby car park is filled with camper vans and some coaches which have been carrying tourists on day trips to the likes of the Giant's Causeway and the Bushmills Distillery.
Keiren, from Liverpool, said the incident was "shocking"
Keiren, from Liverpool, travelled with his family in camper vans to tour around the north coast.
He said they had not heard about the incident until they arrived in the village.
"It's a bit shocking," he said.
When asked if it would have put them off coming to the village he replied: "Potentially, it's happened in the town centre - it's a rare occasion for something like this to happen."
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said the man was left with potentially life-changing but not life-threatening injuries.
Assistant Chief Constable Bobby Singleton told BBC News NI it was a "really shocking incident with levels of, almost, ultraviolence".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Kieran McEvoy described the Bushmills attack as a 'dark incident'
Kieran McEvoy, a tour guide from the Republic of Ireland, said none of the tourists he had been escorting around the north coast had heard about the attack.
"Nobody has said anything to me or seems to know about it and I haven't mentioned it," he said.
"I'm trying to paint Ireland in a positive light and this is a dark incident.
"We don't hear about this that much anymore so it didn't occur to me to talk about it."
In the Northern Ireland Assembly on Tuesday, Alliance MLA Sian Mulholland said there was "no justification for this type of behaviour in 2024".
"We are 26 years post Good Friday Agreement, enough is enough and that is what the community is saying."
She said she had contact with parents in the village who are "really worried".
"How do they tell their children about what's on the news and why their town is on the news?
"How do they stop the conversations that will no doubt happen on the playground?"
DUP MLA Paul Frew also told the assembly that it was a "sinister attack, with atrocious violence and brutality, perpetrated on an individual who like every other member of the public has the right to live free from the threat and impact of violence".
"This criminal behaviour must be condemned universally and unequivocally." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-68969509 |
Security guard shot at Drake's Toronto home amid beef with Kendrick Lamar - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A lyrical beef between the Canadian rapper and US rival Kendrick Lamar has exploded in recent days. | US & Canada | It remains unclear if Drake was at home when the shooting occurred
Toronto police have said a security guard was shot overnight outside the home of Canadian rapper Drake.
Police said suspects in a vehicle shot the guard at the corner of the Park Lane Circle mansion around 02:00 EDT (06:00 GMT) on Tuesday before fleeing the scene.
It remains unclear if Drake was at home when the incident occurred or whether he was a target of the shooting.
He is currently embroiled in a war of words with US rap rival Kendrick Lamar.
But police said it was too early in their investigation to speak about a motive.
"We are in contact with [Drake's] team and they are cooperating," Inspector Paul Krawczyk of the Integrated Gun and Gang Task Force told reporters on Tuesday morning.
He said police are currently assessing video that captures the shooting but is not releasing information about it due to video quality issues.
The victim is in hospital and is in serious condition, he added.
Witnesses told Canadian media he had sustained several gunshot wounds, including one to the chest.
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow told reporters she had been briefed by police about the shooting but declined to provide details.
"Any shooting is not welcome in this city and I hope the police will find the people that are violating the law and catch them," she said.
The lyrical beef between Drake and Lamar has grown bitterly personal, with a flurry of "diss tracks" exchanged between two of hip-hop's biggest stars over the weekend.
The Canadian's house, in the ritzy Bridle Path neighbourhood of Toronto, is the subject of cover art for Lamar's latest song Not Like Us, which is currently topping US and global music charts.
In the song, Lamar accuses Drake of having relationships with underage women, and of harbouring a secret love child, with the image appearing to suggest he is housing multiple sex offenders under his roof.
Drake's response, The Heart Part 6, denies the allegations and says he "feels disgusted" by them.
The rapper has discussed his home, which he refers to as The Embassy, in his own music and on social media. Its gates are twice as high as permissible under city law, because of his security needs.
Pictures online show the property has been cordoned off with caution tape as police investigate the shooting.
The BBC has reached out to representatives of both artists for comment. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68972253 |
Israel sets out four issues with Hamas ceasefire offer as talks resume - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | An Israeli official says the proposal for a "permanent ceasefire" is among the problems, as a delegation arrives in Cairo. | Middle East | Gaza 'choked off' from aid, says UN humanitarian office
As we've been reporting, the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings - the key entry points for aid into Gaza - remain shut, cutting off aid deliveries into the Gaza Strip, the UN says. A spokesperson for the United Nations' humanitarian office, Jens Laerke, says both crossings fall within the evacuation zone, which means "the two main arteries for getting aid into Gaza are currently choked off". Israeli officials told the UN that there will be no crossings of personnel or goods in or out of the Rafah crossing "for the time being", Laerke says. Kerem Shalom crossing was closed after a rocket attack by Hamas fighters over the weekend killed four Israeli soldiers in the area. Hamas then targeted the crossing in another attack on Tuesday morning. Laerke adds that there is just one day of fuel left to sustain the UN's entire operation in Gaza. He also criticises Israel's evacuation notice, saying there was not enough warning to civilians and the UN was not informed before it warned Palestinians to evacuate eastern parts of Rafah ahead of the strikes. He adds there is no safe passage to the new humanitarian zone, and says that those on the ground have told him of "massive bombs lying in the street" in Khan Younis. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-68963839 |
Russian plot to kill Zelensky foiled, Kyiv says - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Two Ukrainian security officials are held over a Russian plot to assassinate the president, Ukraine says. | Europe | Ukraine said it arrested two Ukrainian officials who worked with the Russian security services
The Ukrainian security service (SBU) says it has foiled a Russian plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky and other high-ranking Ukrainian officials.
Two Ukrainian government protection unit colonels have been arrested.
The SBU said they were part of a network of agents belonging to the Russian state security service (FSB).
They had reportedly been searching for willing "executors" among Mr Zelensky's bodyguards to kidnap and kill him.
Ever since Russian paratroopers attempted to land in Kyiv and assassinate President Zelensky in the early hours and days of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, plots to assassinate him have been commonplace.
The Ukrainian leader said at the start of the invasion he was Russia's "number one target".
But this alleged plot stands out from the rest. It involves serving colonels, whose job it was to keep officials and institutions safe, allegedly hired as moles.
Other targets included military intelligence head Kyrylo Budanov and SBU chief Vasyl Malyuk, the agency added.
The group had reportedly planned to kill Mr Budanov before Orthodox Easter, which this year fell on 5 May.
According to the SBU, the plotters had aimed to use a mole to get information about his location, which they would then have attacked with rockets, drones and anti-tank grenades.
One of the officers who was later arrested had already bought drones and anti-personnel mines, the SBU said.
The SBU said it found various ordnance, including an anti-tank grenade, on the plotters
SBU head Vasyl Malyuk said the attack was supposed to be "a gift to Putin before the inauguration" - referring to Russia's Vladimir Putin who was sworn in for a fifth term as president at the Kremlin on Tuesday.
The operation turned into a failure of the Russian special services, Mr Malyuk said.
"But we must not forget - the enemy is strong and experienced, he cannot be underestimated," he added.
The two Ukrainian officials are being held on suspicion of treason and of preparing a terrorist act.
The SBU said three FSB employees oversaw the organisation and the attack.
One of them, named as Dmytro Perlin, had been recruiting "moles" since before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Another FSB employee, Oleksiy Kornev, reportedly held "conspiratorial" meetings "in neighbouring European states" before the invasion with one of the Ukrainian colonels arrested.
In a released interrogation with one of the suspects, they can be heard describing how they were paid thousands of dollars directly by parcels or indirectly through their relatives. It is not clear whether he was speaking under duress or not.
Investigators insist they monitored the men throughout. We are unlikely to know how close they came to carrying out their alleged plan.
The plot may read like a thriller but it is also a reminder of the risks Ukraine's wartime leader faces.
Last month, a Polish man was arrested and charged with planning to co-operate with Russian intelligence services to aid a possible assassination of Mr Zelensky.
At the weekend Ukraine's president appeared on the Russian interior ministry's wanted list on unspecified charges.
The foreign ministry in Kyiv condemned the move as showing "the desperation of the Russian state machine and propaganda", and pointed out that the International Criminal Court had issued a warrant for Vladimir Putin's arrest. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68968256 |
Boeing in new inquiry over 787 inspection doubts - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The plane-maker told US regulators staff may have falsified inspection records for 787 Dreamliner jets. | Business | The US has opened a new inquiry into troubled jet firm Boeing, after the company told air safety regulators that it might not have properly inspected its 787 Dreamliner planes.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it would look into whether staff had falsified records.
It said Boeing was re-inspecting all 787 jets on the manufacturing line.
Boeing will be forced to develop an "action plan" to address concerns about planes already in service, it added.
Internally, the company told staff last week that the "misconduct" had not created an "immediate safety of flight issue", according to a message seen by BBC News.
"We quickly reviewed the matter and learned that several people had been violating company policies by not performing a required test, but recording the work as having been completed," Scott Stocker, head of the Boeing 787 program, said in the email to staff.
The FAA said that Boeing had come forward "voluntarily" last month to warn that it "may not have completed" inspections required to confirm adequate electrical safeguards where the wings join the main body of certain of its 787 Dreamliners, a large jet often used on international flights.
"The FAA is investigating whether Boeing completed the inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records," it said.
"As the investigation continues, the FAA will take any necessary action - as always - to ensure the safety of the flying public."
It is the latest problem to erupt at Boeing in recent years. In January, an unused emergency exit door blew off a new 737 Max 9 plane shortly after take-off, thrusting its manufacturing and safety processes into the spotlight.
The incident prompted the temporary grounding of dozens of planes and has forced the firm to drastically slow production, while sparking increased regulatory oversight, criminal investigation and other legal and financial troubles.
In March, chief executive Dave Calhoun said he would be stepping down by the end of the year, becoming the most high-profile person to exit the company in the wake of the incident.
Boeing's reputation had been damaged a few years ago, when two of its 737 Max planes crashed within five months of each other, claiming the lives of 346 passengers and crew. A 737 Max flown by Ethiopian Airlines aircraft crashed shortly after take-off in March, 2019, following a Lion Air crash in October 2018. That led to the then chief executive Dennis Muilenburg being fired.
Last month, Congress hosted a hearing featuring whistleblowers, including Sam Salehpour who testified that his concerns about the 787 had been dismissed.
Boeing has said it is working to reform its corporate culture to encourage people who see problems to speak out, with a "more than 500% increase" in reports from employees since January. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68966894 |
Moment Edinburgh tenant records rent row on secret video - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | null | Jason Chen secretly recorded a video of a row during which a man is seen waving a stool toward him. | null | A tenant has told of the moment he was confronted by a man he believed to be his landlord during a row over a rental payment.
Jason Chen secretly recorded a video of the incident where the man is seen waving a stool during the dispute over Mr Chen's Edinburgh flat going without hot water for 28 days.
Mr Chen told BBC News he believes the man in the video is flat owner and controversial businessman Mark Fortune.
Mr Fortune denied this and said he was at the dentist in France at the time. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-68088938 |
Newscast - Local Electioncast! The Reaction (part 4…) - BBC Sounds | 2024-05-07 | null | The results are in, and we look at what they really tell us. | null | The results are in, and we look at what they really tell us. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0hw6rq9 |
BBC migration coverage: Review finds no consistent bias but risks to impartiality - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A review of the BBC's coverage of migration suggests the corporation should explore stories in greater detail. | Entertainment & Arts | Some people noticed coverage in general was more sympathetic to Ukrainians than other migrant groups, said the study
A review into the BBC's migration coverage has found while there is no consistent bias towards one viewpoint, there are risks to impartiality.
Commissioned by the BBC board, in April 2023, Dr Madeline Sumption's review found while the BBC "produces a lot of excellent content on migration... there are also weaknesses".
There were "risks to impartiality that point in multiple directions".
And it "often tells migration stories through a narrow political lens".
The review, focused on news and current affairs, also suggested coverage sometimes sought narrow "balance" by quoting soundbites from people with opposing views, while audiences wanted greater depth.
Viewers and listeners needed more context and explanation around complex policies such as sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, it found.
Journalists were sometimes anxious about taking on topics they felt could be hostile to migrants - even though these issues could be investigated while also being respectful towards the people involved and subjects such as immigration fraud covered "in a factual and nuanced way, without demonising migrants".
And by focusing primarily on political developments, the BBC could overlook concerns such as how migration affected communities, housing, public services and the labour market.
"BBC coverage should have equal empathy for migrants and UK residents who worry about the impacts of migration," Dr Sumption wrote.
The UK public's views on migration "run the gamut from deeply sceptical to very liberal", her review said.
"But audiences generally recognised that migration brings both benefits and challenges.
"The BBC should reflect this nuance and not just the strongest views on either side".
Dr Sumption spoke to more than 100 people, including journalists and experts, inside and outside the BBC, and 17 focus groups.
Many felt the coverage was largely negative, framing migration as a problem, with positives, such as migrants' contributions to the labour market - as well as the challenges - under-reported.
They often wanted more international context and answers to questions such as "Is the UK a 'disproportionately' popular destination for migrants and asylum seekers?"
And some had noticed the coverage was more sympathetic to Ukrainians than other migrant groups.
The BBC could do a better job of distinguishing between refugees and asylum seekers, the review found.
It was "striking that the BBC almost never uses the term 'Ukrainian migrants' - Ukrainians are described as 'refugees', even though they have not been assessed for refugee status".
But it often described asylum seekers who could be sent to Rwanda as "migrants", even though many were believed to be refugees.
Some BBC journalists and external experts - regardless of their views on migration - suggested the BBC was too readily led by the political agenda, which focused heavily on small boats during the review period, even though small-boat arrivals made up only a few percent of total immigration figures.
Other routes to asylum and subjects such as emigration and integration received little coverage, the review found.
And the voices and perspectives of migrants themselves were often missing entirely from BBC reporting.
Many of the challenges arose from a lack of time or subject-specific expertise among many of the BBC journalists reporting on migration, the review found, with many migration stories covered by the online or political teams, who are thinly spread across all topic areas.
BBC board member Sir Nicholas Serota, who chairs the editorial guidelines and standards committee, said: "As recent events confirm, migration is a highly contested area of public policy - and that is why BBC reporting on it must meet the highest editorial standards.
"This board-commissioned review finds that BBC coverage of migration has many strengths but that it could also better reflect the topic's complexities, as well as ensuring coverage is not overly dominated by political and high-profile voices.
"We have asked the director general and the executive to ensure all actions suggested in the review are implemented and the editorial guidelines and standards committee of the board will monitor progress to ensure all the challenges raised are addressed."
The BBC executive has endorsed six key points from the report, which it expects all journalists to consider carefully when working on stories about migration: | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68970447 |
Watch: Thousands celebrate Ipswich Town Premier League promotion - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | null | Blue smoke and cheers fill the air as people line the streets to greet their newly promoted heroes. | null | Tens of thousands of people lined the streets to cheer Ipswich Town players on a parade to celebrate promotion to the Premier League.
Video showed blue smoke from flares, singing and chanting as the open-top bus made its way through a packed town to Christchurch Park.
The Tractor Boys secured promotion on Saturday with a 2-0 win over Huddersfield. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-68964860 |
Leeds woman found dead next to estranged husband had been stabbed - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Karen O'Leary and her estranged husband were found dead at their home in April. | Leeds & West Yorkshire | Police said they were not looking for anyone else in connection with Mrs O'Leary's death
A woman found dead alongside her estranged husband at her home in Leeds had died from multiple stab wounds, an inquest has heard.
The bodies of Karen O'Leary, 63 and Dennis O'Leary, 61 were found by police in the bedroom of the property on Fearnville Close, Oakwood, on 25 April.
The inquest heard a blood-stained knife was found and there was evidence a fire had been started in the bedroom.
Police are not looking for anyone else in connection with the deaths.
The hearing in Wakefield, led by senior coroner Kevin McLoughlin, was told the couple had been experiencing difficulties in their marriage.
Mrs O'Leary had left the marital home seven weeks earlier and had returned to the house on the day of her death to talk to her estranged husband, the inquest heard.
West Yorkshire Police discovered the bodies when they were called to the house after receiving a report of a concern for safety.
The inquest has been adjourned until a later date.
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Drake denies allegations of underage relationships in Kendrick Lamar song - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | "I feel disgusted," says the musician, after Lamar claims he had relationships with underage women. | Entertainment & Arts | Drake says he would "have been arrested" if the allegations were true
Drake has denied allegations of having relationships with underage women, and of harbouring a secret love child, which were raised in a diss track by his rival Kendrick Lamar.
It comes amid an increasingly bitter war of words between the two stars, who have released a flurry of songs attacking each other over the weekend.
In Drake's latest offering, The Heart Part 6, he says he "feels disgusted" by Lamar's claims, and suggests he deliberately fed the star incorrect information in the hope he'd use it.
Lamar's accusations came in his third attack song of the weekend, called Not Like Us.
"Say, Drake, I hear you like 'em young," he raps. "Tryna strike a chord and it's probably A minor."
He had previously alluded to the allegation on a separate track, Meet The Grahams, in a verse addressed to Drake's mother, Sandra.
"We gotta raise our daughters knowing there's predators like him lurking… I'm looking to shoot through any pervert that lives, keep the family safe."
Lamar also claimed that Drake had a daughter who he had been keeping secret from the public.
In his response, Drake laughed off the accusation, saying it had been deliberately planted, and that his rival unknowingly took the bait.
"The ones that you're getting your stories from, they're all clowns," Drake rapped. "We plotted for a week and then we fed you the information/A daughter that's 11 years old, I bet he takes it."
And he angrily denied the allegations of underage sex, saying: "Drake is not a name that you gonn' see on no sex offender list, easy does it / You mentioning A minor … B sharp and tell the fans: Who was it?"
He continued: "I never been with no-one underage ... Just for clarity, I feel disgusted, I'm too respected."
If the allegations were true, he added, "I promise I'd have been arrested".
Kendrick Lamar kept the pressure on Drake all weekend, releasing three songs in the space of 36 hours
The rappers' months-long feud started last year with the Drake song First Person Shooter, where Fellow rapper J Cole boasted that he, Drake and Lamar were the "big three" of hip-hop.
Lamar responded with a verse on the song Like That, boasting of his superiority and declaring there was no big three, "it's just big me".
After the song reached number one in America, Drake responded with two diss tracks, Push Ups and Taylor Made Freestyle, the latter of which featured AI versions of Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg taunting Lamar.
That song was later taken down after a threat of legal action by Tupac's estate.
Lamar then began his latest volley of songs, beginning with Euphoria, in which he invoked the Drake's earlier feud with Pusha T, who revealed Drake had a son, unbeknownst to the public at the time.
That song is currently the third most-streamed track on Spotify, with its partner song Meet The Grahams at number two.
Drake's diss tracks Family Matters and Push Ups are at 13 and 33 respectively. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68965267 |
Bowen: Netanyahu knows Hamas survival amounts to his own defeat - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The Israeli PM is facing hard decisions following Hamas's surprise acceptance of a draft ceasefire deal. | Middle East | After months of on-off hard talking between belligerents and mediators, the time has come for hard decisions.
Hamas has agreed to a draft ceasefire deal, which is "far from meeting Israel's demands", according to Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He has still felt it necessary to dispatch a delegation to discuss it.
Israel agreed to a ceasefire offer at the end of April. The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it was "exceptionally generous".
A big challenge for the negotiators in Cairo is closing the gap between Israel's version and the one accepted by Hamas. Diplomatic sources in Qatar, which is part of the mediation effort with Egypt and the United States, told me "it is broadly the same as Israel's proposal. Just minor wordings changed and details".
Israel may decide that the differences are not minor. One major sticking point has been that Hamas wants a ceasefire to be permanent, not temporary, and to be followed by an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
If the US delegation, led by the CIA chief William Burns, believes the gaps can be bridged, Mr Netanyahu can expect pressure from Washington to agree.
Until Monday evening, Israel's working assumption was that Hamas would not accept a ceasefire proposal. Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, like most foreign observers, were blindsided when Hamas announced its decision.
There are two ways of looking at the Hamas gambit. It can be seen as a desperate move by an organisation badly bloodied and almost broken by Israel's long offensive.
Or it was an adroit political move, which has turned the pressure back on Mr Netanyahu. That explanation is more credible, as Israel's plans and assumptions were upended by the offer.
We know that Israel was basing its moves in the next phase of the war on an assumption that Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas chief in Gaza who has been in hiding since 7 October, would never accept a ceasefire.
Israel used the absence of a ceasefire offer from Hamas as an explanation for its decision to launch a military operation in Gaza. The US is very clear that it is against any ground operation in Rafah that could threaten the lives of more Palestinian civilians.
As Israel warned around 100,000 Palestinians to leave their homes at first light on Monday, its defence minister Yoav Gallant told his US counterpart that there was no alternative to a Rafah assault.
That, he said, was because Hamas had rejected every proposal for a temporary ceasefire and a release of hostages. Only a few hours later, Hamas made its announcement, calling Israel's bluff.
Mr Netanyahu is in a political bind. His governing style over more than 16 years as Israel's leader has been characterised by a habit of putting off difficult choices.
But now he is under severe pressure, from all sides, and however tempting it might be to play for time, this is a moment for decisions.
The most intense pressure comes from two ultranationalist Jewish extremists in his cabinet - finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, minister for national security.
Mr Netanyahu needs their votes to keep his coalition in power. They want Israel to occupy Rafah and have threatened to topple the government if he does not make it happen. For them, a ceasefire equals surrender.
News Hamas had accepted a proposal sparked protests demanding Israeli leaders do the same
At the same time, families and supporters of Israeli hostages have been demonstrating, blocking major roads to demand that Israel makes a deal to get them back home.
The hostage families have support in the war cabinet from Benny Gantz and Gabi Eisenkot, two opposition leaders who joined the cabinet after the 7 October attacks. They might leave the government if, in the absence of a ceasefire, the hostages stay put.
The Americans also want a deal. President Biden's support for Israel, even as its army killed huge numbers of Palestinian civilians, is costing him political support.
If Mr Biden decides that there is an acceptable version of a ceasefire to be had, he will push Benjamin Netanyahu to support it.
The Israeli leader would have to choose between his government's survival and the vital support the US president has given him in recent months.
It is widely believed in Israel that Mr Netanyahu wants to prolong the war to put off the moment of reckoning for his own part in the mistakes that gave Hamas its opportunity on 7 October to kill around 1200 people, mostly Israelis and take 240 hostages into Gaza.
A ceasefire would also mean that Benjamin Netanyahu has not achieved "total victory" over Hamas - one of his two main war aims. The other is freeing the hostages, which he has not achieved either.
This war is showing, once again, how hard it is for powerful countries like Israel to defeat much weaker organisations like Hamas. For Hamas, survival means victory, and Benjamin Netanyahu knows that, for him, would be a defeat. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68967000 |
Children stranded in Ukraine after Tenerife passport theft - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The Buchko children are waiting for new visas to return to Britain after their passports were stolen. | Europe | The Buchko family were on holiday in Tenerife when their bags were stolen
A Ukrainian family living in the UK say they cannot return home after the theft of their passports on holiday.
The Buchko family, who have lived in Britain for two years, were in the Canary Islands last month but now do not have visas to get back to the UK.
Bohdan, who is about to sit his GCSEs, and siblings Daryna and Orest have been in Ukraine waiting for documents to gain entry and return via Poland.
The Home Office said it did not routinely comment on individual cases.
Without travel documents, Bohdan, 16, Daryna, 15, and Orest, nine were forced to return to Ukraine on emergency Ukrainian passports. Mum Mariana Buchko did not lose her passport and so was able to return to the UK.
They have since been issued new Ukrainian passports but Mariana says the Home Office has told her that issuing them with new visas to return to the UK could take up to eight weeks.
She is asking the UK government to speed up the process so that Bohdan can sit his GCSE exams, which begin this Friday.
The children need to get a new BRP visa, which lets you re-enter the UK once only, from Warsaw - a process handled by the Home Office - and then apply for the replacement visas once they are back in the UK.
The children's father, Vasyl Buchko, lives in Ukraine while his wife and children moved to Hertfordshire in April 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Vasyl has fought in the war. After sustaining an injury, he was given leave from the army and decided to surprise his children by taking them on holiday to Tenerife - their first in years.
But the holiday turned into a nightmare following the theft on 11 April.
Vasyl Buchko and his daughter Daryna Buchko on holiday in Tenerife.
"My children's passports and residency permits were stolen," Mariana Buchko told the BBC.
"This has caused havoc [for] our family as there is no procedure for quickly reissuing children's visas."
She said the nearest Ukrainian consulate was in Malaga - on the Spanish mainland - which they managed to get to after several days.
The consul could only issue them with emergency white passports for return to Ukraine. This meant her husband and children flying to Poland and catching three trains to Ukraine on 19 April. Vasyl has remained in Ukraine to fight.
Mariana, Bohdan, Daryna and Orest Buchko have lived in Hertfordshire for over two years
She says she has been trying for weeks to get her children back to the UK. After being issued with new Ukrainian passports, they are now waiting to be issued new UK visas. But Mariana says she has been told the process could take weeks, meaning Bohdan will miss many of his GCSE exams, including Biology this Friday.
In the meantime, the children are staying with relatives in the capital, Kyiv, which Mariana says is causing them stress and anxiety.
"My children are currently in a war zone without their mother and isolated from their friends."
According to Mariana, in Kyiv they hear air raid sirens up to five times a day and regularly spend time in shelters.
Russia regularly targets the capital with cruise missiles and drones.
Daryna Buchko recently spent her 15th birthday in Kyiv without her parents.
"My children feel sad and anxious without me," Mariana said.
Monk's Walk school in Hertfordshire confirmed the two older children, who would usually be in attendance at the school, are believed to be in Ukraine.
Beverley Piggott, of Welwyn, Hertfordshire, hosted the Buchko family for six months when they first moved to the UK. She says the process of sponsoring them to move to the UK in 2022 was much quicker.
Vasyl Buchko with hospital staff who treated him for shrapnel in his leg in March 2024.
She said she had spent the past three weeks attempting to get the family back to the UK.
"I have made hundreds of phone calls and sent hundreds of emails to our local MP, the Ukrainian embassy, British embassy, Home Office, Foreign Office and so-on.
"I am desperate to get these children back to the UK with their mother. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68964977 |
UK inflation rate calculator: How much are prices rising for you? - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Use our calculator to find out how much the cost of living is going up in your household. | Business | Our personal inflation calculator, built by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in collaboration with the BBC, shows you what the inflation rate is for your household, and identifies the items in your household budget that have gone up the most in price over the past year. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62558817 |
Kidderminster woman pleads guilty to role in monkey torture network - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Holly LeGresley, 37, was a participant in a group that paid people to kill and torture baby monkeys. | Hereford & Worcester | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Holly LeGresley was surrounded as she left Worcester Magistrates' Court
A British woman has pleaded guilty to being part of a global monkey torture network.
Holly LeGresley, 37, from Kidderminster, was a participant in a private online group that was paying people in Indonesia to kill and torture baby monkeys on video.
The convictions follow a year-long investigation by the BBC Eye team.
They went undercover in the groups to expose the existence of the sadistic global network.
LeGresley, of Baldwin Road, pleaded guilty at Worcester Magistrates' Court to charges of consuming, causing and facilitating the torture of baby monkeys over the internet.
She admitted to uploading 22 images and 132 videos of monkeys being tortured to online chat groups.
The prosecution said LeGresley showed a desire to harm vulnerable creatures and that she also had a hatred towards pregnant women and children.
The monkey torture community began life on YouTube before moving to encrypted messaging apps
The 37-year-old was part of a group on the messaging app Telegram that brainstormed, crowdfunded and then commissioned videos of monkeys being tortured by people in Indonesia.
The group was used to share ideas for custom-made torture videos such as setting live monkeys on fire, injuring them with tools and even putting one in a blender.
The ideas were then sent, along with payments, to video-makers in Indonesia who carried them out, sometimes killing the baby long-tailed macaque monkeys in the process.
Under the username "The Immolator" LeGresley once ran a poll for members of the group on which method of torture should be inflicted upon an infant monkey.
LeGresley will be sentenced at crown court on 7 June.
BBC Eye identified her as a participant in a group run by a US man called Mike Macartney, a former motorcycle gang member who served time in prison and went by the screen name "Torture King".
"The Torture King" Mike Macartney at home in Virginia
LeGresley, who at the time was living with her parents in the Midlands, was among the most active participants in the group and was made a group moderator by Macartney.
She would often message privately with Macartney, who pleaded guilty this month to animal abuse charges in the US and is facing up to five years in prison.
Kevin Lacks-Kelly, the head of the UK National Wildlife Crime Unit, said LeGresley played a key and active role in the global torture network.
He said she was much more than a spectator, that she raised funds, archived videos to share between groups and acted as an admin in the groups welcoming new members.
"I've been investigating wild crime for 22 years and it sickens me to say that this is unequivocally the worst case I have ever investigated or overseen," he said.
Sarah Kite, a co-founder of the animal charity Action for Primates who investigated the groups, said LeGresley "unquestionably derived enjoyment from watching helpless infant monkeys in terror and pain fighting for their lives".
"The depth of the depravity and perversion... in facilitating the horrific and gratuitous torture and killing of vulnerable baby monkeys was sickening, something I had never seen previously," she said.
Adriana Orme was arrested by police in October 2022
Another woman, Adriana Orme, of The Beeches in Ryall, near Upton-upon Severn, also appeared at the magistrates' court on Tuesday in connection with the network.
The 55-year-old chose not to enter a plea at this stage to charges of publishing an obscene article and for causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal.
Orme is alleged to have published an obscene article by uploading one image and 26 videos of monkey torture between 14 April and 16 June 2022.
She is also alleged to have encouraged or assisted the commission of unnecessary suffering by making a £10 payment to a PayPal account on April 26 2022.
Her next appearance in court will be 5 June.
LeGresley, who left court without comment, admitted uploading images of monkey torture between 25 March and 8 May 2022, and making a payment of £17.24 to a PayPal account to encourage cruelty on 25 April 2022.
Both defendants have been granted conditional bail and ordered not to have unsupervised contact with any animal or child.
Holly LeGresley (right) pleaded guilty to being part of the torture network, while Adriana Orme (left) did not enter a plea
At least 20 people were placed under investigation globally last year following the BBC's investigation.
Three participants have already been charged in the US, including the ringleader of the group, Macartney.
David Christopher Noble, 48, a former US Air Force officer who was previously court-martialled and dismissed from the military, and Nicole Devilbiss, 35, faced the same charges as Macartney and are both facing up to five years in prison.
Along with Macartney, the BBC identified two other ringleaders in the monkey torture network - Stacey Storey, a grandmother in her 40s from Alabama who was known in the community as "Sadistic", and a man known as "Mr Ape", whose real identity we cannot reveal for safety reasons.
Both were expected to face charges for their role in the groups.
Police in Indonesia detain Asep Yadi Nurul Hikmah, who was among the most brutal torturers
Police in Indonesia also arrested two torture suspects.
Asep Yadi Nurul Hikmah was charged with animal torture and the sale of a protected species and sentenced to three years in prison.
M Ajis Rasjana was sentenced to eight months - the maximum sentence available for torturing an animal.
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Crystal Palace 4-0 Manchester United: Michael Olise scores twice in dominant victory - BBC Sport | 2024-05-07 | null | Crystal Palace seal their first league double over Manchester United with a rampant 4-0 win at Selhurst Park. | null | Last updated on .From the section Premier League
Crystal Palace sealed a first league double over Manchester United with a rampant 4-0 win at Selhurst Park.
Michael Olise ran 20 yards under no challenge to eventually slot beyond Andre Onana to put Oliver Glasner's side in the lead after 13 minutes.
Jean-Philippe Mateta surged beyond Johnny Evans to finish emphatically for his sixth goal in a row on home turf.
Tyrick Mitchell tapped in from close range after a fine cross by Adam Wharton in the 58th minute and French youngster Olise capitalised on a Casemiro mistake to power a strike beyond a wanting Onana.
From the first minute, Glasner's men looked full of intent against a United side who failed to turn up at Selhurst Park.
As a defensive unit, United put in one of the worst performances of the season with Casemiro and Evans becoming their 14th centre back partnership used this campaign.
• None 'Under performing' Man Utd 'one of worst coached teams in league'
Eberechi Eze and Olise were given the freedom of the pitch to control the play and caused United trouble on numerous occasions.
Erik ten Hag's side threatened in a couple of moments with Casemiro twice having goals ruled out - the first for a foul on Dean Henderson and the second for offside.
Odsonne Edouard almost rubbed further salt in the wounds but his injury-time effort struck the upright.
With title-chasing Arsenal next up, United must greatly improve to avoid another thrashing.
At one stage in the season, Ten Hag's side looked as though they could put pressure on Aston Villa for a Champions League spot.
That dream is long gone and United are now at risk of missing out on qualifying for any European competition next season.
They must either finish seventh in the Premier League to secure Europa Conference League football or beat Manchester City in the FA Cup final to seal a Europa League place.
One win in seven has seen United slide down the table into eighth and their fixtures do not get any easier with league leaders Arsenal visiting Old Trafford on Sunday.
A defeat by this scoreline can be hugely damaging but for those United fans who made the trip to Selhurst Park on a Bank Holiday Monday, it is the manner in which the players seemingly looked disinterested that will hurt the most.
Wharton an outsider for the England squad?
All eyes have been on United's talented youngster, Kobbie Mainoo, and rightfully so but it is hard to ignore the performances being put in by midfielder Wharton since his January move.
Wharton, 20, has impressed since day one at Selhurst Park after his £18m move from Blackburn Rovers on transfer deadline day.
Up against England internationals Mason Mount and Mainoo, Wharton shone with his slick passing between the lines and combativeness in defence.
Positionally, Wharton is excellent. Especially for someone at such a tender age. He has the ability to know exactly where to be on the pitch and when it is best to release the ball for a team-mate.
The former Blackburn man has been a huge addition to a Palace side who have won four of their past five.
A fantastic cross for Joachim Andersen to set up Mitchell's goal was just a small sample of the quality Wharton brings.
England boss Gareth Southgate was in attendance in London with a preliminary squad for Euro 2024 set to be announced on Tuesday, 21 May and with the Three Lions short of players in the mould of Wharton, could a shock inclusion be on the cards?
• None Attempt saved. Jordan Ayew (Crystal Palace) left footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Odsonne Édouard.
• None Odsonne Édouard (Crystal Palace) hits the left post with a right footed shot from the left side of the box. Assisted by Marc Guéhi.
• None Delay over. They are ready to continue.
• None Attempt missed. Chris Richards (Crystal Palace) header from the left side of the six yard box misses to the right. Assisted by Jordan Ayew with a cross following a corner.
• None Odsonne Édouard (Crystal Palace) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
• None Attempt blocked. Michael Olise (Crystal Palace) left footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Adam Wharton. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68918237 |
Nintendo Switch 2: Official announcement promised within next year - BBC News | 2024-05-07 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | After months with no official news, the Japanese game-maker promises some within the next 10 months. | Newsbeat | Sales of the Nintendo Switch were boosted by games such as pandemic smash-hit Animal Crossing
Nintendo has finally broken its silence on the successor to its smash-hit Switch - but don't get too excited.
Fans have been eagerly awaiting news on the console for months, but little official information has emerged.
Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has now promised an announcement at some point before March 2025.
But he also said there would be no mention of the new machine at the company's Nintendo Direct event next month.
In a post on X, the boss of the Japanese company, said: "It will have been over nine years since we announced the existence of Nintendo Switch back in March 2015."
He said next month's Direct would focus on the "Nintendo Switch software line-up for the latter half of 2024".
"But please be aware that there will be no mention of the Nintendo Switch successor during that presentation," he said, adding that this information would arrive "within this fiscal year".
The company holds several of the trailer showcases each year, and recent outings have sparked masses of speculation about whether the "Switch 2" - as fans have unofficially called the new machine - would appear.
Other announcements, such as the reveal of upcoming Pokemon Legends: Z-A, have also sent the rumour mill into overdrive.
Fans might have to wait a little bit longer for news on Mario's next major console game
There's never been much doubt that Nintendo was working on something - the original Switch has sold more than 130 million units since it was released in 2017.
It hasn't seen too many blockbuster releases since last year's Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Super Mario Wonder.
The company has released Mario Vs. Donkey Kong and Princess Peach: Showtime! this year, but beyond remakes of Luigi's Mansion 2 and role-playing game Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, no further in-house titles are planned.
There are also complaints that the seven-year-old console struggles to run some newer games.
Piers Harding-Rolls, head of games research at Ampere Analytics, told the BBC some Nintendo fans had been "demanding a more powerful Switch for at least the last three years".
But, he said, the company has refused to rush out a new machine and kept customers interested with upgrades such as the revised OLED screen model released in 2021.
"From 2021 to the end of 2023, Nintendo sold 60 million more Switch consoles to consumers globally and has generated operating profits in excess of $10bn (£7.98 bn) based on today's exchange rates," he said.
The post from company boss Mr Furukawa coincided with Nintendo releasing its financial results for the past year.
While it reported a rise in profits, sales of software and hardware were down, but the company said the Switch had 123 million annual users despite being eight years old.
It also said it had plans to expand the use of Nintendo characters into other areas.
These include the next Mario movie, a Donkey Kong Country area of its Super Nintendo World attraction at Universal Studios Japan, and a new company museum near its HQ in Kyoto, Japan.
As for the Switch follow-up, various rumours and alleged leaks about the new machine's capabilities have emerged over the past year, but nothing has been confirmed by Nintendo itself.
Piers believes that the follow-up won't be a massive change in direction, unlike some of Nintendo's previous console releases.
"Judging by the success of the Switch, we expect the new device to be a similar form factor and to continue the legacy of the original product," he said.
Piers said he expects the new console to be released in the first half of 2025.
But we can now say, with confidence, that we'll know something by the end of this (financial) year.
Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68969083 |