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In the space of two months, the 25-year-old has become one of the most controversial politicians in Hong Kong - and is now pitted in a court battle against the Hong Kong and Chinese governments - even though she has admitted it could bankrupt her. Ms Yau and fellow party member Sixtus Leung won elections in September, gaining more than 55,000 votes between them. Ms Yau, a daughter of two civil servants, had little previous political experience, and made headlines for edging out a veteran politician to win a seat. The Chinese Studies graduate had been involved in the 2014 pro-democracy protests, when tens of thousands of people, including large numbers of students, took to the streets demanding fully democratic elections in Hong Kong. She describes the protests as an important part of her political awakening. After the movement failed to win any concessions from Beijing, Ms Yau and Mr Leung became involved in a new political party - Youngspiration - that campaigns against mainland China's influence on Hong Kong, and advocates a "Hong Kong first" approach. The party struck a nerve with many young Hong Kongers unhappy with China and disillusioned with traditional pro-democracy parties, who they argue have failed to achieve any reform. But, after their election victory, things quickly spiralled out of control. Ms Yau and Mr Leung sparked a furore when they were being sworn in last month. Instead of pledging allegiance to the "Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China", the duo swore allegiance to the "Hong Kong nation", used a term considered derogatory towards China, and displayed a banner that read "Hong Kong is not China". Their oaths were invalidated, and thousands of people protested against their actions, demanding they be removed from parliament. A top Chinese official even likened the duo to "two cancer cells - if you don't care about it, it will continue to hurt your body". The Hong Kong government launched a court case to disqualify them. And the Chinese government also decided to intervene - issuing a controversial interpretation of Hong Kong's law on oath taking, to say that any oath that is not "sincere" should be automatically disqualified. After losing the court case, Ms Yau and Mr Leung were disqualified as legislators - and are now also bombarded with angry comments on social media, where people accuse them of being useless, politically naïve, or insulting their country. But for all the controversy surrounding her, Ms Yau comes across as mild-mannered and determined in person - and less slick or media trained than many other politicians. "We know that appealing the court decision will cost a lot," she says. "We may face bankruptcy, but we have no choice." She is concerned that if the case is not challenged, it may set a legal precedent for other pro-independence legislators to be disqualified, which would allow the government to "negate the results of a democratic vote". She says she believes in independence for Hong Kong because the "One Country, Two Systems" model under which it is governed, after it was handed back to China from the British in 1997, is "a failed experiment". Despite the model, which promises Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy, "in these few years we have seen the PRC [People's Republic of China] government having direct interventions into the internal affairs of Hong Kong". "We have to find another way to solve this problem," she says. "One solution may be independence - or maybe we can find another kind of solution, but right now I can't think of any other solutions." It is true that there has been growing anger in Hong Kong at perceived Chinese involvement in its affairs. In particular, the disappearance of five Hong Kong booksellers who published books critical of mainland China in late 2015 sparked concerns over Hong Kong's future. But a majority of people in Hong Kong do not support independence - or think that calls for independence are part of the problem, not the solution. Hong Kong relies on China for much of its food and water supplies - as well as much of its trade - and the Chinese government has shown that it has zero tolerance for moves towards independence from any of its territories. The last British governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, supported democratic reform in Hong Kong - but recently said that independence for Hong Kong is "something which is not going to happen". He has argued that the campaign for independence "dilutes support for democracy and makes a mockery of a serious political argument", and that it would be "a tragedy" if the "moral high ground" of those seeking democracy was lost. Veteran democracy activist Martin Lee has even said he felt suspicious of Ms Yau and Mr Leung's actions, saying that they are "giving [Beijing] the excuse" to destroy Hong Kong's judicial independence. Some have even accused Ms Yau and Mr Leung of secretly working with Beijing to undermine Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement. Ms Yau flatly denies this, and says her party has faced such accusations ever since it was founded. "There are no external forces telling us what to do, to make long term plans, or betray Hong Kong." Looking amused, she adds: "If we really were undercover agents, surely we'd still be in the legislative council - we wouldn't have let ourselves get kicked out, would we?" Ms Yau is known for being outspoken. She supported gay marriage in her election campaign - despite receiving criticism for it - and also raised eyebrows when she said that Hong Kong's housing shortage meant that young people had "no room to bang". But a lot of the comments about Ms Yau have focused on her gender and appearance, rather than her policies. One newspaper wrote articles about what she wore to rallies, highlighting what they called her "protest look", while others nicknamed her "goddess" in reference to her appearance. And the sexism appears to have stepped up a notch since the oath-taking controversy. At one pro-Beijing protest, demonstrators stuck a photo of Ms Yau on a sex doll - and internet commentators have shared photos of Ms Yau's dress being hiked up during a scuffle in parliament. Ms Yau says she believes the sexist attacks are "not because of my gender - it's because my ideology is different from theirs". However, experts have argued that the remarks are indicative of gender stereotyping in Hong Kong media - and worry that they could put off other women from entering politics. As for Ms Yau, she says she will continue to work to fulfil her campaign pledges - even if she loses her appeal and her seat in parliament. "The fact is that many Hong Kongers take [independence] as an aim for the future of Hong Kong," and the government can't ignore those voices, she says. "I hope in the future, Hong Kong people have the power to choose their destiny and the future they want - whatever it is they decide to choose." Additional reporting by BBC Chinese's Martin Yip

Yau Wai-ching is the youngest woman to be elected to Hong Kong's parliament - and she has been called many things, including: "radical", "goddess", "spy", "pretty" and "cancer cell".

Tiffany Li, 31, posted $4m in cash and pledged $61m in property, raised from a group of friends, family and business associates, the Associated Press said. The bail had been set at $35m, but California courts require double the amount if property is used. Her lawyer said she was "well-liked in the community", the LA Times reported. "I was surprised at the number of people that came forward," Geoff Carr said, "I think people believe she is not guilty," he told the newspaper. Ms Li has pleaded not guilty to charges that she conspired with her boyfriend, Kaveh Bayat, and another man, Olivier Adella, to kill Keith Green, 27, and dispose of his body last year. Prosecutors say she feared losing custody of her young children to Mr Green. San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe told the LA Times the bail sum - described as "mind boggling" in one news report - would be the highest ever posted in the wealthy county's history. He said he believed her to be a flight risk, but that lawyers on both sides had agreed that if the expected release went ahead she would have to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet, be under house arrest and surrender her passport as well as her children's. Mr Carr said he expected Ms Li, a Chinese-born property manager and former stockbroker, to be released on Thursday, the Associated Press reported. A family friend of Mr Green, Angela Dunn, said news of the bail was "very disappointing", ABC7 reported. Mr Green and Ms Li had met on 28 April at a pancake restaurant near her home in Hillsborough, an area south of San Francisco, considered one of the wealthiest communities in the US. But he never returned home. His body was found nearly two weeks later, some 80 miles (128km) north. He had been shot dead. A week after that, Ms Li, Mr Adella and Mr Bayat were arrested on suspicion of murder.

A California woman suspected of murdering the father of her two children is hoping to be released from prison after raising $65m (£52m) bail.

The report, a summary of which was released by the Homeland Security Department, said the agency needed more plainclothes and uniformed staff. It added that the White House needed a new, taller fence. The review came after an intruder with a knife entered the building. Omar Gonzalez, a former US soldier, was apprehended deep inside the presidential residence in September after he had scaled a fence around the building and evaded several guards - including one with an attack dog. Julia Pierson, the Secret Service director at the time, resigned partly as a result of this breach. The Secret Service is tasked with guarding the US president, as well as several senior government officials. According to an executive summary of the independent review, the agency's next director "will have to make difficult choices, identifying clear priorities for the organisation and holding management accountable for any failure to achieve those priorities". "Only a director from outside the [Secret] Service, removed from organisational traditions and personal relationships, will be able to do the honest top-to-bottom reassessment this will require." The review also said a better fence should be built "as soon as possible", recommending one that was several feet higher and curved outwards, making it harder to scale. However, the review noted that the problems in the agency "go deeper than a new fence can fix". The panel said the agency's staff were over-stretched, working "an unsustainable number of hours". It called for boosting the service's ranks by 85 special agents and 200 uniformed officers, to reduce overtime and allow staff to receive regular training. The four-member panel based its findings on interviews with 50 employees of the Secret Service. The panel admitted that many of its recommendations had been made before - but not implemented. Many details have already emerged of the security lapses that allowed Mr Gonzalez to enter the White House, pointing to a lack of training, bad staffing decisions and failures in communication. Mr Obama and his family were not at the White House when the intrusion happened, having departed about 10 minutes earlier by helicopter. Mr Gonzalez has been indicted on charges including unlawfully entering a restricted building or grounds while carrying a deadly or dangerous weapon and unlawful possession of ammunition. The intrusion came after a series of embarrassing lapses by the Secret Service - including reports that agents had used prostitutes while on duty in Colombia.

The US Secret Service, which guards the US president, is too insular and must recruit its next head externally, a review prompted by a White House security breach says.

Net mortgage lending fell to £2.4bn in the April-to-June quarter, down from £3.5bn a year earlier. The building society also said more people opened a current account with it during the three-month period than with any other provider. Nationwide's profits for the quarter fell 20% to £322m, after last year's results were helped by a one-off gain. A year earlier, the building society had received a £100m boost to its profits from the sale of its investment in Visa Europe. Announcing the latest results, chief executive Joe Garner said "Profit performance in the first quarter remained comfortably within our strategic target range and, after allowing for one-off items, was broadly consistent with the prior period." Nationwide had a 13% share of the mortgage market in the quarter, down from 15% in the same time last year. A spokesman for the building society said it expected its buy-to-let lending to remain "broadly flat". Nationwide had "raised the bar for landlord's affordability before most other lenders with the aim of helping ensure our borrowers can meet future repayments", he added. "This, together with a softening of lending due to Stamp Duty and tax changes, led to a decline in buy-to-let." In the first quarter Nationwide opened 202,000 new current accounts, a rise of 17% on the same time last year. The company also said that more than a fifth (22.4%) of all people switching current accounts had moved to Nationwide.

Nationwide has reported a sharp fall in mortgage lending, mainly due to making fewer buy-to-let loans.

The theft happened outside St John's Kirk in St John's Place in the city before 23:30 on Monday. It was the second time the life-sized doll had been stolen from the nativity scene in the past two years. Police Scotland said three males would be reported to the procurator fiscal in due course. Anne Chat, who serves as an elder at the church and also works as a volunteer, said after the theft: "Last year someone stole the doll from the display too, but it turned up again a while later. "It just seems to be something that people do these days, it's a shame." Mrs Chat said the nativity had been put in place by the locals on Saturday evening after a lantern procession attended by about a hundred people and a pipe band.

A life-sized baby Jesus which was stolen from a nativity display at a church in Perth has been found.

The 19-year-old will now be eligible to play against Barnsley in the Football League Trophy final on Sunday. Kenny, who joined up with the England Under-20 squad over Easter, has so far made 13 appearances for the U's. "He has done really well for us and is enjoying his football," said Oxford head coach Michael Appleton. "He is highly thought of at Goodison Park and has a big future."

Oxford United have extended the loan of right-back Jonjoe Kenny from Premier League side Everton until the end of the season.

It was part of Czechoslovakia until the "velvet divorce" in January 1993. Having uncoupled itself from its western neighbour, Slovakia at first struggled to prove itself as an independent democracy, but by the time of the twentieth anniversary of the "velvet divorce" in January 2013, it had come to be seen as one of Europe's biggest success stories. Slovakia joined the EU in 2004 and the eurozone in 2009. Its forces have taken part in the Nato-led operation in Afghanistan, and in peacekeeping duties in Kosovo. Slovakia has a significant Romany population which suffers disproportionately high levels of poverty and social deprivation. Population 5.5 million Area 49,033 sq km (18,932 sq miles) Major language Slovak Major religion Christianity Life expectancy 72 years (men), 80 years (women) Currency euro President: Andrej Kiska Philanthropist and former businessman Andrej Kiska (pictured right) was elected president in 2014. He won a run-off election against the country's social democratic prime minister, Robert Fico, whose defeat was considered highly significant: if he had become head of state, his party would have controlled the presidency as well as the government. Mr Kiska campaigned on the need to have a healthy balance of power between the president and the cabinet, and called for a strengthening of the independence of the judiciary where the president appoints important personnel. The presidency is largely ceremonial, but the president has the power to pick the prime minister, appoint Constitutional Court judges and veto laws. A parliamentary majority can override vetoes. Prime minister: Robert Fico Robert Fico (above left) was asked to form a new coalition government after his party won the most seats in the parliamentary election in March 2016 . He had already served as prime minister since April 2012. A left-wing deputy in the Slovak parliament since 1992, and a former member of the Communist party, he had previously served as deputy chairman of the Party of the Democratic Left (SDL). He left the SDL in 1999 to establish Direction (Smer), which later merged with other parties to become Smer-Social Democracy. He first became prime minister in July 2006 and held the post until July 2010. Although Smer-SD won the most seats in the June 2010 election, he was unable to form a government and went into opposition. Smer-SD won a landslide victory in the March 2012 election, becoming the first party since independence to win an outright majority in parliament. With two powerful domestic financial groups now owning, either directly or indirectly, the majority of media outlets, fears of potential political pressure have increased. In particular, "oligarchisation" is seen as having a negative impact on domestic investigative journalism. Television and radio remain the most popular media. Some key dates in the history of Slovakia: 1918-1992 - Republic of Czechoslovakia includes Czech, Slovak and Ruthenian lands. The "velvet divorce" results in two independent countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. 2004 - Slovakia joins Nato and European Union. 2009 - Slovakia adopts the euro.

Right at the heart of Europe and with a history intertwined with that of its neighbours, Slovakia has proudly preserved its own language and distinct cultural traditions.

Giaccherini, 31, joined the Black Cats in 2013 from Juventus for £6.5m but, after an impressive first season, he struggled to make an impact. He played 43 times in total for the club, scoring five goals, but spent last season on loan at Serie A Bologna. The Italian has 29 international caps and scored the Azzurri's opening goal of Euro 2016 against Belgium. Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page.

Sunderland and Italy winger Emanuele Giaccherini has joined Napoli on a three-year deal for an undisclosed fee.

But he did not know the size of block grant coming from the Treasury in London until George Osborne's autumn statement on 25 November. So with few sleeps and bargain-seeking days to Christmas, the budget process is being delivered this week, and the legislative timetable squeezed. What can be expected of John Swinney's taxation and spending plans? Let's play budget bingo. "Osborne's austerity is wrong for Scotland": There will be a squeeze of more than 5% (the Scottish government prefers a slightly different calculation rounding it up to 6%) in current or revenue (non-capital) spending. "Difficult decisions have to be made": If the health service is protected from cuts, and schools too, departments with less than half the budget have to absorb all the cuts. That is likely to feature local government, which has been told to brace itself for some deep cuts in grant funding over the next five years. John Swinney could sweeten the pill by allowing them to raise council tax - as George Osborne did south of the border, allowing a 2% council tax rise if it is to pay for social care. But it will be tempting to stick to a ninth year of freezing council tax, even though that will cost him a cumulated £630m out of next year's budget, and even though it is more generous to those with the biggest bills. "Taxes for a fairer Scotland": That'll be the reason for not using the new Scottish Rate of Income Tax. Both Mr Swinney and the first minister have said they want to use income tax powers only when they are sufficiently flexible to tilt the burden towards those most able to pay it. That will probably, eventually, mean a rise in higher rate tax, or changes to thresholds. That flexibility won't be added to this year's new powers until 2017. "A healthy private rented housing market": Mr Swinney could choose to follow Mr Osborne's example last month, by raising property transaction tax on buy-to-let homes. It would be a progressive move. But the Scottish finance secretary doesn't need to burst a house price bubble in and around his capital city. He may also want to give landlords something they like, to make up for the boost to tenants' rights they are soon to face. "ESA10": Technical jargon for public finance nerds, but it matters a lot. Mr Swinney has to give more detail than he did last month on the constraints placed on capital projects by a European accounting rule that makes significant capital projects a public liability rather than the private one that had been planned. "Scottish Fiscal Commission": This independent, new-ish body will publish its reckoning of Mr Swinney's fiscal projections at the same time his draft budget is delivered. Watch for a shortfall in revenue from Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (the successor to Stamp Duty). "The A9": The road is busy, it's being dualled, slowly, and it runs right through Mr Swinney's constituency. "PFI on steroids": Labour's Jackie Baillie will complain about the "debt mountain" being built up under the SNP. Quoting a report from The Guardian about £15bn of council debt and the liabilities resulting from the Public Finance Initiative and its successors, she probably won't explain that a lot of it was built up while she was a minister. "Capitulation to the powerful roads lobby": Greens will complain that insufficient money has been directed towards household energy efficiency, and too much is going on building a new Forth crossing and Aberdeen ring road. "Eye off the ball": Conservatives will blame any and all shortcomings in public sector performance and economic performance on the SNP government's campaign for independence. It's a way of rallying 'No' voters. Watch Ruth Davidson for pointers towards manifesto tax cut pledges. "Budget for fairness, for growth and for Scotland": Whatever is announced, and whatever the reality, Mr Swinney will present his draft budget as all these and more. "House!" (Yes, more housing too. It will be a theme of the SNP election campaign.)

John Swinney should have published his draft budget in mid-September, for MSPs to deliberate on it over winter, with a big rubber stamp in plenty time for the start of the financial year.

But there are about 500 deaths a year in the UK from cardiac arrest among the under-30s. When it happens it is shocking. Doubly so when it affects a sports star like 23-year-old Fabrice Muamba. He is said to be one of the fittest players at his club, Bolton Wanderers. The same sentiments were expressed about Marc-Vivien Foe, the Cameroon footballer who collapsed and died during an international match in 2003. But the underlying cause of such deaths are likely to be inherited rather than a reflection on their fitness. Genetic abnormalities are usually associated with arrhythmias - irregular heart beats - or cardiomyopathies, which is a disease of the heart muscle. But where sport can play a role is on the likelihood of these conditions leading to a cardiac arrest. The evidence is not clear-cut. But research has suggested that those with inherited conditions are twice as likely to suffer a cardiac arrest if they play sport at a high level. Dr Leonard Shapiro, a consultant cardiologist and medical adviser to the Football Association, says it is always difficult to know exactly what triggers the attack. But he says: "There is a predisposition in some individuals to have a cardiac event under very high physical and emotional stress." The question that is always asked after such events is whether anything can be done to prevent them. Many sports in Britain regularly screen top athletes, although it is not mandatory as it is in some countries such as Italy. In football, players are checked at 16 and then are likely to have regular check-ups as their career goes on. Those that are diagnosed with a problem often have to give up top-level sport. Sports cardiologist Sanjay Sharma, who also works for the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young, says the tests are thorough, but not perfect. "It involves taking a history relating to cardiac symptoms, which include chest pain during exertion or breath which is disproportionate to the amount of exercise being performed, and blackouts, and asking about a family history because many of these conditions that can cause cardiac arrest are hereditary. "We then perform a cardiac examination and following that we do an ECG (electrocardiogram), which is an electrical tracing of the heart which looks for electric faults of the heart, and a cardiac ultrasound, which looks at heart muscle problems or problems with the heart valves." However, they do not guarantee that an abnormality will be picked up. The difficulty is that such abnormalities are not always permanent. They can come and go - as the Muamba case suggests. It has been reported that the Bolton player had four such screenings during his career, the latest of which was done last summer.

Most people associate heart problems - and cardiac arrest in particular - with older people.

Jason Alexander, 39, used a company credit card to buy almost £91,000 of iPads, phones and computers. Alexander, of Griffithstown, Torfaen, admitted fraud and was jailed for two years in January. But at Cardiff Crown Court on Thursday, a judge ordered him to pay back £115,000 to his ex-employers. "It seems you were doing it as some kind of philanthropic act," Judge Stephen Hopkins QC said. "In some cases spending £5,000 on items and then selling the items to employees for as little as £180 on the philanthropic basis they will not have been able to buy the items themselves." He ordered Alexander to pay his ex-employers £115,867 within six months or face an additional 18 months in jail. "You had an enormous impact on a large number of perfectly innocent people," the judge added. "Those to whom you sold goods to now feel stupid and stressed. "The impact upon your colleagues has been awful. You have stolen from the company and there was a dip in morale for a period. "This was a gross and serious breach of trust over a substantial period of years." Alexander had control of spending at car parts company, Northern Automotive Systems in Gilwern, near Abergavenny, Monmouthshire. He made 287 purchases on internet sites such as Amazon, eBay and Argos. The court heard the company's usual monthly credit card bill was in the hundreds, but when Alexander became purchasing manager the bill "increased to nearly £10,000 per month". But his scheme was discovered when suspicious company managers asked employees if they had bought cut-priced electrical goods. The conman deleted emails as well as falsifying invoices, receipts and card statements to cover his trail. Alexander, who had worked at the company for 14 years, bought petrol for his white Land Rover, red Mini and his partner's Ford Fiesta.

A man who used money defrauded from his employers to buy then sell computers to colleagues at knock-down prices must hand back more than £100,000.

Police raided 43-year-old John Nicholson's Dundee home in February following a tip-off. Officers found drugs including more than 2.5 kg of heroin with a street value of £263,000 during the operation. Nicholson will be sentenced on 11 May after admitting being concerned in the supply of drugs at his home in the city's Raglan Street. Defence counsel Ronnie Renucci said Nicholson pled guilty on the basis that he had allowed his house to be used for the storage of the drugs. Mr Renucci said: "He was not the owner of the drugs. He was doing so to pay off a debt." The High Court in Edinburgh was told police officers also recovered £100,000 worth of amphetamine and cannabis with a potential street value of between £60,000 and £90,000. The court heard that Nicholson had previous convictions for road traffic offences and dishonesty but had never been jailed. Lord Kinclaven deferred sentence on Nicholson for reports and remanded him in custody.

A man stored £450,000 worth of heroin, cannabis and amphetamines at his house to pay off a debt, a court was told.

Abels Shipbuilders at Albion dockyard on Bristol's Floating Harbour is to cease trading because its owner is retiring. Bristol City Council said it will continue to partly lease the site as a repair facility. The final boat 'Forth Hope', set sail on Wednesday afternoon for Edinburgh, where it will become a medical vessel. Two firms Bristol Classic Boat Company and Slipway Co-operative will continue to build smaller boats in the city. There is uncertainty over the future of the dry dock, and owner David Abels, 66, hopes it is not redeveloped because it is "the last one left". Mr Abels has leased Albion Dockyard, which has been in operation since 1820, for 37 years. Mr Abels voiced concerns it would be redeveloped into residential apartments and said: "Once you lose it, it's gone. The dock is an essential part of Bristol being Bristol". The Bristol Ships Board said there would no longer be a dry dockyard in Bristol if the Albion closes. Bristol City Council confirmed the lease had gone out to tender and the authority is gathering expressions of interest, including one from the SS Great Britain Trust. Robert Orrett, from Bristol City Council, said: "Anyone that takes the new lease will have a contractual obligation to us to make sure the larger vessels in the harbour that need to be maintained continue to have a facility." Inside Out West will feature David Abels' story on Monday, 3 October. The programme followed the construction of the ship over the past six months.

The last builder of large ships in Bristol has closed after its final vessel sailed out of dock.

Pakistan's 42-year-old Test captain Misbah-ul-Haq and 40-year-old batsman Younis Khan complete the list. India captain Virat Kohli, 28, was named leading cricketer in the world, while Australia's Ellyse Perry, 26, was the world's leading women's cricketer. The coveted awards, which began in 1889, are a central feature of the annual Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. Its editor said 2016 was the year Woakes, 28, "announced himself as an international-class all-rounder". They praised the 26 wickets the Warwickshire player took over last summer's four Tests against Pakistan, and the unbeaten 95 he scored in a one-day international against Sri Lanka at Trent Bridge in June. Northamptonshire batsman Duckett, 22, was singled out for his "remarkable" run total of 2,706 across all formats of the game last year. "As much as anyone, he epitomised English cricket's new breed of 360-degree batsmanship," it was added. Roland-Jones, 29, who was called up to England's Test squad for the first time in July, picked up a hat-trick for Middlesex as they secured a first County Championship title in 23 years in September. Wisden editor Lawrence Booth described the feat as "the highlight of the domestic summer". Younis' "classy" 218 in Pakistan's final Test against England at The Oval was "a reminder that his struggles earlier in the series had been a blip rather than part of a decline", Booth wrote. Misbah's celebratory press-ups after an unbeaten century in the first Test at Lord's were described as "one of the motifs of the year". Australia all-rounder Perry "seemed to be operating on another level" over a year in which she averaged 81 with the bat in one-day internationals, taking her record between 2014 and 2016 to 17 half-centuries in 23 innings. And India captain Kohli's double ton in Mumbai confirmed him as "the spiritual successor to Sachin Tendulkar".

English trio Ben Duckett, Chris Woakes and Toby Roland-Jones have been named among Wisden's Cricketers of the Year.

The fine follows the conviction of former RBS trader, Shirlina Tsang, for fraud last year. She was sentenced to 50 months in prison after being caught falsifying records of emerging markets trades. Hong Kong regulators said RBS's controls were "seriously inadequate". The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) also said there were "significant weaknesses in its procedures, management systems and internal controls." But the regulator said the fine took into account the bank's speedy action in alerting the authorities once it had discovered the illegal trades, which took place in its emerging markets rates business in 2011. "This deserves substantial credit and is the reason why today's sanctions are not heavier ones," Mark Steward, the SFC's head of enforcement, said in a statement. RBS responded with a statement, reading: "We put in place a comprehensive remediation programme that strengthened our governance and supervisory oversight, and our control environment." The fine is relatively small compared to others the bank has received in the last few years. In December RBS agreed to pay 391m euros (£320m) in penalties to the European Commission for its role in the attempted rigging of Yen Libor and Euribor - the Tokyo and euro equivalents of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor. In the same month it was fined $100m (£60m) by US regulators for violations of US sanctions against Iran, Sudan, Burma, and Cuba. The bank was found to have removed location information on payments made to US financial institutions from countries such as Iran and Cuba.

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has been fined HK$6m (£460,000) by Hong Kong regulators after it failed to detect a series of unauthorised transactions by one of its traders.

The traditional Tuesday and Wednesday slot used by Uefa will be set aside as the first leg coincides with the 'Twelfth' marches in Northern Ireland. It's understood the new date has been agreed by the clubs and approved by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Linfield must first defeat La Fiorita of San Marino in a first-round clash. The Northern Ireland champions will host La Fiorita in Belfast on 28 June, with the return leg on 4 July. If the Blues progress they will play the 1967 European Cup winners, who are managed by County Antrim-born Brendan Rodgers, for the first time. The first leg of the Champions League second round qualifiers are scheduled to take place on 11/12 July. However they are key dates in the annual Orange celebrations, sparking fears of trouble with Celtic's large travelling support heading to Belfast at the height of the marching season. Linfield's national stadium is located in the largely loyalist Sandy Row area. Police are understood to have ruled out the match taking place on either the 11th or 12th amid concerns tensions could erupt between Celtic and Linfield fans. A possible solution to the dilemma would have been to switch the ties, with Celtic hosting the opener in Glasgow before the return a week later. Linfield dismissed that possibility as they look to cash in on the right to host the all-important first leg, Blues chairman Roy McGivern telling BBC Sport a home leg first was always "the preferred choice" of the Irish Premiership champions. Celtic defeated Irish League opposition in Belfast four years ago with a 3-0 win over Cliftonville in a Champions League qualifier.

Celtic's potential Champions League qualifier with Irish Premiership champions Linfield has been pencilled in for Friday 14 July at Windsor Park.

A total of 304 people, mostly school students, were killed when the ship - which was overloaded and illegally redesigned - sank off Jindo island. The government has faced a day of anger with relatives cancelling at least one memorial service in protest. Divers have recovered all but nine of the bodies. Relatives say the ship must be raised and their remains found. The government says salvaging the ship will cost $110m (£74m) and has previously refused to commit to doing so. But President Park Guen-hye, speaking at a port in Jindo, said she would take "the necessary steps to salvage the ship at the earliest possible date". South Korea's National Assembly adopted a resolution saying a speedy recovery of the ferry would help heal "the minds of the victims, survivors and bereaved families... as well as those of all the citizens". But relatives of the missing students had said there were not convinced that the Sewol would definitely be raised, the BBC's Stephen Evans in Seoul reports. They remain wary of the plan, and called Ms Park's announcement vague and politically motivated. Steve Evans, BBC News, Seoul: Even as President Park gave the bereaved families what they had been asking for, she must have felt their wrath and their grief. Dressed in the black of mourning, she stood on a windy breakwater near where the Sewol sank and announced that the vessel would be raised - just as the families had demanded. "I have a heavy heart and my heart aches to think how painful it is," she says. But bereaved families had left the port before she arrived, a gesture the South Korean media interpreted as a protest against what the families allege is her previous inaction over both the raising of the Sewol and fulfilling the promise of an independent enquiry. Demands for answers go on How can ferry be raised? Memorial ceremonies are being held across the country on Thursday. But relatives cancelled a planned service in the city of Ansan in protest against Ms Park's absence from the event. In the morning, Prime Minister Lee Wan-koo was prevented from entering the venue by relatives of those who died. Investigators say the ferry sank after an inexperienced crew member made too fast a turn. The combination of an illegal redesign and overload meant the ship was unstable. But some relatives say they want an independent and more thorough inquiry into the disaster, which sparked countrywide debate about regulatory failings and official incompetence. Most of the crew of the Sewol survived. The captain and three senior crew members have since been given long jail terms for failing to protect passengers. Eleven other crew members were imprisoned, as was the captain of the a coast guard vessel involved in the botched rescue effort. Separate trials were held for employees of the ferry operator, Chonghaejin Marine Co. Its owner, Yoo Byung-eun, disappeared after the disaster and was eventually found dead. Bedrooms of the remembered

South Korea's president has promised to raise the Sewol ferry, as the nation marks a year since the disaster.

Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb was speaking after Friday's final televised debate before the election. "There's only one party that's in a position to secure an overall majority and that's the Welsh Conservatives," he told the Sunday Politics Wales show. During the debate, Labour's Owen Smith clashed with Plaid's Leanne Wood. Mr Smith challenged Plaid's Leanne Wood about whether she would vote down an Ed Miliband minority government. The Plaid leader responded by accusing Labour of taking Wales for granted over many decades. Also speaking to Sunday's BBC Wales programme, Mr Smith repeated his call to Ms Wood. "Hell will freeze over before I vote with the Tories. Leanne Wood hasn't confirmed that she wouldn't vote with the Tories," he stated. "She's the one that's got a question to answer about that not Labour." On behalf of Plaid Cymru, Dr Dafydd Trystan said his party's view was absolutely clear: "We will not vote for a Tory prime minister neither will we vote for Tory policies imposed by a Labour Party." Welsh Liberal Democrat leader Kirsty Williams told Sunday Politics Wales: "The choices are either having a government that is dragged off by nationalists who will threaten jobs and threaten the stability of the union, or dragged off to the right by UKIP that would cut public expenditure or they could choose to vote for the Liberal Democrats who would anchor the government in the centre ground." UKIP's Nathan Gill told the programme: "We really do believe that the people who make our laws are the people that are in Westminster or the Welsh Assembly, not in Brussels. "We believe that the money that we spend needs to be spent here in Wales or Britain on us." Wales Green party leader Pippa Bartolotti said, "We have a very real and immediate problem with the state of gender pay. I want to help women out of this terrible rut that government after government has kicked them into." Sunday Politics Wales is on BBC One Wales on Sunday 3 May at 11:00 BST - or on the BBC iPlayer.

The Conservatives have accused Labour and Plaid Cymru of being involved in an "unedifying squabble" over who to support if there is a hung parliament.

Following an eighth-placed finish in 2015, Swansea endured a run of just two wins in 17 Premier League games before Francesco Guidolin was named as their new head coach on 18 January. Salomon Rondon's last-gasp equaliser on Tuesday denied them a win at West Brom. "We might have [not have] won, but I definitely think we are seeing the old Swansea again," Sigurdsson said. "We are playing much better than we were. Things weren't good [earlier this season]. "We weren't playing well and keeping the ball like we used to - that's hopefully changing now." Swansea were in unfamiliar territory after the departure of former boss Garry Monk on 9 December and the playing squad faced criticism. But after Tuesday's 1-1 draw, Baggies' Welsh boss Tony Pulis believes the Swans have enough quality to avoid relegation from the Premier League this season. "When in possession, they pass the ball so well and could have scored two or three goals," Pulis said. "I think Swansea have too much quality to not stay up." Sigurdsson, the Swans' goal-scorer at the Hawthorns, is currently on his best run of goal-scoring form since his initial loan spell at the Liberty Stadium in 2012, scoring in four of his five appearances so far in 2016. And the Iceland international felt the Swans had done enough to earn a third straight win on Tuesday. "It feels a bit like a defeat, to lead coming into the last few minutes," Sigurdsson added. "We played really well, until the last few minutes. But if you'd have offered us seven points from our last three games, we'd have taken that." Swansea currently lie in 16th place in the Premier League table ahead of home clashes with Crystal Palace and Southampton.

The "old Swansea City" are back after earning seven points from three games, says midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson.

The FTSE 250 company said this was due to customers switching less between savings and current accounts because of low interest rates. The news overshadowed the 16% rise in annual profits to £73.5m that the company reported for 2016. Another big faller in the FTSE 250 was transport group Go-Ahead. Its shares dived nearly 14% after the company warned of lower-than-expected full-year profits, partly due to the disruption caused by strikes on Southern rail services. Go-Ahead owns a 65% stake in Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), which runs the Southern rail contract. Half-year profits at Go-Ahead fell 11.7% to £67m, and the company said its results had been "significantly impacted by a reduction in rail profitability due to losses from our GTR franchise, as a result of ongoing industrial action on Southern". The benchmark FTSE 100 index gained ground during the afternoon after spending the morning in the doldrums. At the close, it was up 10.44 points at 7,263.44. The biggest riser in the FTSE 100 was support services group Babcock, which rose 7.1% after issuing a positive trading update. On the currency markets, the pound dipped 0.13% against the US dollar to $1.2427 and was 0.4% lower against the euro at 1.1707 euros.

Shares in Moneysupermarket fell more than 6% after the comparison website warned that revenues so far this year were running below last year's levels.

The visitors, managed by former Burton boss Gary Rowett, pinned the Brewers back in the opening exchanges. But Jackson Irvine then tested Blues keeper Adam Legzdins before former Birmingham loan signing Lloyd Dyer put Burton ahead with a superb finish. Jamie Ward volleyed the second, before skipper Michael Morrison headed Blues' best chance wide from a late corner. Burton's second victory in nine league games lifts Nigel Clough's side six places to 13th in the Championship, while Birmingham remain fifth after only their third defeat of the season - but their second on successive Fridays. The home side initially struggled to get out of their own half, creating their first clear chance when former Burton keeper Legzdins used his legs to deny Irvine after former Aston Villa trainee Ward flicked on. Northern Ireland international Ward then provided the pass for 34-year-old Dyer to run onto, and he gave the Blues keeper no chance with the outside of his left foot. Ward forced Legzdins to a smart near-post save after outsmarting Ryan Shotton, but benefitted from a marginal offside decision to drive home the second as Burton made it six games unbeaten in matches played on Friday evenings. Burton Albion boss Nigel Clough told BBC Radio Derby: "Quite often this season we haven't got what we deserved but tonight we could have won by more than two. That is the next stage for us, to really get the results that our performances deserve. "Psychologically, it is important for us to try and stay out of the bottom three if we can. It is going to be a battle to do that but nights like tonight undoubtedly help. "Jamie Ward has made one and scored one. That is what we brought him in for - that little bit of quality. The balance between him and Chris O'Grady is important. "Chris is working his socks off up there. He is such a great team player and appreciated by everyone in the dressing room." Birmingham City manager Gary Rowett told BBC WM: "We were very poor but Burton thoroughly deserved it. They showed a bit more energy and drive on a difficult evening for us. "Derby and Sheffield Wednesday have found out the hard way here too. Nigel has got a good side, who play with real forward impetus and quality. They'll turn a lot of teams over here, playing like that. "For the first 15 or 20 minutes, the game panned out how we wanted and we exploited the spaces. But then they got back into it, worked what we were doing and started to pin us back with their wing-backs. "After that we didn't play with anywhere near enough quality. We're going to have to be a lot better than that against Aston Villa next week." Match ends, Burton Albion 2, Birmingham City 0. Second Half ends, Burton Albion 2, Birmingham City 0. Attempt blocked. Greg Stewart (Birmingham City) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Che Adams. Offside, Birmingham City. Maikel Kieftenbeld tries a through ball, but Lukas Jutkiewicz is caught offside. Delay over. They are ready to continue. Substitution, Burton Albion. Hamza Choudhury replaces Matthew Palmer. Delay in match Clayton Donaldson (Birmingham City) because of an injury. Jonathan Spector (Birmingham City) wins a free kick in the attacking half. Foul by Chris O'Grady (Burton Albion). Attempt missed. Jackson Irvine (Burton Albion) right footed shot from outside the box misses to the right. Assisted by Lee Williamson with a headed pass. Substitution, Burton Albion. Lee Williamson replaces Tom Naylor. Attempt missed. Tom Naylor (Burton Albion) right footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses the top right corner. Assisted by Jackson Irvine with a headed pass following a set piece situation. Foul by Jonathan Grounds (Birmingham City). Lucas Akins (Burton Albion) wins a free kick on the right wing. Foul by Jonathan Spector (Birmingham City). Chris O'Grady (Burton Albion) wins a free kick in the attacking half. Michael Morrison (Birmingham City) wins a free kick in the defensive half. Foul by Chris O'Grady (Burton Albion). Substitution, Burton Albion. Will Miller replaces Jamie Ward. Attempt missed. Michael Morrison (Birmingham City) header from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the left. Assisted by Greg Stewart with a cross following a corner. Corner, Birmingham City. Conceded by Kyle McFadzean. Attempt blocked. Che Adams (Birmingham City) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Clayton Donaldson. Attempt missed. Jackson Irvine (Burton Albion) header from the centre of the box is just a bit too high. Assisted by Lucas Akins with a cross. Attempt blocked. Lukas Jutkiewicz (Birmingham City) left footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Jonathan Grounds. Attempt blocked. Greg Stewart (Birmingham City) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Clayton Donaldson (Birmingham City) wins a free kick in the attacking half. Foul by John Brayford (Burton Albion). Attempt missed. Chris O'Grady (Burton Albion) left footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the left. Assisted by Jamie Ward. Ryan Shotton (Birmingham City) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul. Foul by Ryan Shotton (Birmingham City). Jamie Ward (Burton Albion) wins a free kick on the right wing. Substitution, Birmingham City. Greg Stewart replaces Jacques Maghoma. Offside, Burton Albion. John Brayford tries a through ball, but Chris O'Grady is caught offside. Foul by Jacques Maghoma (Birmingham City). Jackson Irvine (Burton Albion) wins a free kick in the attacking half. Che Adams (Birmingham City) wins a free kick in the defensive half. Foul by Tom Naylor (Burton Albion). Corner, Birmingham City. Conceded by Lloyd Dyer. Jonathan Grounds (Birmingham City) is shown the yellow card. Goal! Burton Albion 2, Birmingham City 0. Jamie Ward (Burton Albion) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the centre of the goal. Assisted by John Brayford with a headed pass.

Burton Albion scored a goal in each half to deservedly win their first competitive meeting with Birmingham.

Gloucester have played away from their Meadow Park home since a flood in 2007. In September, planning permission was approved to permit initial work on building a new ground for Gloucester. The University of Gloucestershire-based All Golds, who are in the third tier of rugby league, currently play in Cheltenham but want a permanent home. All Golds president Lionel Hurst told BBC Radio Gloucestershire: "We have met with those who own the club. "We can see that it makes considerable sense. We will need to have more meetings. "We are a long way from getting over the line on this, but watch this space. We are constantly seeking our own permanent base for the club. "Rugby league and football are very good friends throughout the land. It would be a very significant partnership if it happened."

National League North side Gloucester City are in talks with rugby league team Gloucestershire All Golds about a potential groundshare.

Labour leadership contender Andy Burnham says he is "struggling" with whether UK action would be legal or not. So what are the key legal questions? Parliament has already rejected military intervention in Syria, in 2013. Ministers say circumstances have changed since then (notably with the rise of IS) and that they would only proceed this time with the backing of Parliament. But this is not technically necessary. Although it has become convention since the 2003 Iraq war, there is no legal requirement for Parliamentary approval for military action. Ministers say they would not proceed without a Commons vote - but they believe they have the authority, under international law, to intervene. Last month, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said there was "no legal bar" to the UK operating in Syria. In September, David Cameron suggested the UK could legally take military action in Syria without a request from President Assad, saying the Syrian president is "illegitimate". The UK is already carrying out air strikes on IS targets in Iraq. The UK says that as the Iraqi government requested intervention, this provides a "clear and unequivocal legal basis" for the military action. But no such request has been received from the Syrian government, and the UK sees the regime as illegitimate in any case. This means the legal arguments around intervention in Syria would be shaped by the complexities and conflicting interpretations of international law. The UN Charter bans "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state" unless used in self-defence or authorised by a UN resolution. Those are the two "classic justifications" for military action, Prof Philippe Sands QC of University College London told the BBC. A UN resolution is unlikely given Russian opposition, leaving the option of self-defence. This would require ministers to show military action was needed to prevent attacks on the UK or its citizens emanating from Syria. Alternatively, the self-defence argument could be used in relation to Iraq, which has already requested military assistance. This is the argument used by the United States, which is carrying out air strikes in Syria. As to whether this would work, "we simply do not know enough about the facts" to say definitely whether the self-defence argument is justified, says Prof Sands. He believes it would be "a bit of a stretch" on the basis of what is publicly available, adding that the UK appears to have "no strategy and no clear basis of information to explain to the public what it is doing, and why it believes it is entitled in law to use force by way of self-defence". Another option would be to justify the action on humanitarian grounds. This was the basis of the government's case for intervention in 2013, when it focused on the possible use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Assad. Its legal position, published in August 2013, set out the three conditions that had to be met: "This puts the evidential bar both high and wide," BBC legal correspondent Clive Coleman wrote at the time. The question would be whether the changed circumstances, with IS - also known as ISIS - militants controlling parts of Syria and fighting against government forces, would meet the test. Dr Jonathan Eyal, international director at the Royal United Services Institute, told the BBC there would be a "quite plausible case". "Given the behaviour we know of ISIS, the circumstances of the horrific civil war in Syria, it's not difficult to construct a case that the humanitarian danger is grave and is immediate," he says. As well as the UN rules, "customary international law" has been established over the years. One option would be the right of "hot pursuit" of IS across borders, Dr Eyal says. Given that Iraq has requested international assistance in the fight against IS militants, the UK could argue that unless it can pursue them into Syria, they could "seek refuge across the border and the situation will never end", he says. This argument is strengthened by the inability of the Syria government to control its own territory he says, adding that hot pursuit is "not an argument that lawyers are very comfortable with, but it has been made before". No. Both the hot pursuit and humanitarian intervention arguments are "controversial and contested", Dr Eyal says, with governments accused of "abusing the system". Some legal experts are not convinced any air strikes without specific Security Council authorisation would be consistent with international law, a Commons briefing paper points out. Sort of. A US-led coalition is already carrying out air strikes in Syria. Last month it emerged UK pilots had been embedded with coalition forces and conducting air strikes over Syria against IS. Amid criticism from Labour, Mr Fallon said embedding forces was "standard practice" and their engagement was not a "British military operation". Very much so. The government's insistence on securing Parliamentary approval means it will be MPs' interpretations of these intricacies of international law that will be key. Last time MPs debated military intervention in Syria, opposition from backbench Conservatives and Ed Miliband-led Labour was enough to defeat the government. However, MPs have since overwhelmingly backed action in Iraq, where the target was IS militants. Since those votes, the make-up of the Commons has changed, with the Conservatives holding a majority. The identity of Labour's next leader - with surprise frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn certain to oppose any air strikes - is another complicating factor.

One of the big questions facing MPs after the summer recess could be whether to authorise military intervention against so-called Islamic State (IS) extremists in Syria.

Liverpool City Council's chief executive Ged Fitzgerald and leader of the Conservatives at Lancashire County Council Geoff Driver were among four men held on Monday. The probe is looking into financial irregularities at Lancashire council. Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson said Mr Fitzgerald had not been suspended or faced any disciplinary process. He added Mr Fitzgerald would also be relinquishing his role as interim head of paid service for the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority during the investigation. "This decision has been accepted as the right decision for the city and to enable the council to deliver services without distraction," said Mr Anderson. "There is no intention to appoint an interim chief executive and the requirements of the role will be covered by myself as executive mayor supported by the senior management team in this period." Mr Anderson said Mr Fitzgerald had been bailed by police. Lancashire Constabulary said the arrests at addresses in Preston and Merseyside were made on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and witness intimidation, but not on suspicion of fraud. The investigation, which was launched in 2013, relates to allegations of financial irregularities over the tendering of a £5m contract with One Connect Ltd, a joint venture between the council and BT to run some services. The deal included running the council's fleet of vehicles which was agreed by Lancashire's Conservative administration, then led by Mr Driver. The contract was revoked later that year by the new Labour administration. Mr Fitzgerald was the chief executive at Lancashire before he left to take up the same post at Liverpool City Council.

A council chief executive has stepped aside from his role after being arrested as part of a fraud probe.

The 68-year-old Dutchman was appointed in March, when the Black Cats were one point above the relegation zone. He guided them to safety and was due to leave the club in the summer, only to sign a new one-year contract. Advocaat said: "I have made the decision to go after only eight games as I felt it was important to give everyone time to turn things around." Sunderland chairman Ellis Short said: "I am truly saddened by Dick's decision, but I respect him for his honesty. Media playback is not supported on this device "It is also testament to his character that he has foregone any kind of a financial settlement, something which is very unusual in football." Assistant head coach Zeljko Petrovic has also left the club. Saturday's draw with West Ham left Sunderland without a win in their first eight league matches and looking for a sixth manager in four years. Since Steve Bruce was sacked in November 2011, Martin O'Neill, Paolo di Canio, Gus Poyet and Advocaat have managed the club. Advocaat's departure also follows a trend set by Di Canio and Poyet of managers arriving to save the Black Cats from the drop, only to depart in the next season. He initially agreed to lead Sunderland only until the end of last season, shedding tears as their survival was secured with a 0-0 draw at Arsenal. Advocaat said he would leave the club to fulfil a promise to his wife, but changed his mind and returned in June. The former Netherlands, Russia and South Korea boss has seen his side win just once this season - against League Two Exeter in the League Cup. North-east rivals Newcastle are the only team below them in the Premier League table.

Dick Advocaat has resigned as Sunderland boss, with the team yet to win in the Premier League this season.

The 33-year-old goalkeeper was busy in a 3-3 draw, his first taste of the Champions League group stage. Having been the number one choice for the past two seasons, Gordon was playing after Dorus de Vries picked up an injury at the weekend. "I was happy with how I played - that's all I can do," he said. "Everybody wants to be a part of nights like that. There is no bigger incentive to play well and keep your place." Former Hearts and Sunderland keeper Gordon started the first nine matches of the season but lost his place to summer recruit De Vries in mid-August. Gordon was a half-time replacement in Saturday's win over Kilmarnock, with the 35-year-old Dutchman suffering a chest injury. De Vries was fit enough to be among the substitutes in a thriller with Manchester City in which Gordon made two good stops to deny Ilkay Gundogan, one late in the game from a deflected strike. "This is the highest level of club football and to finally manage that at the age of 33 is a special moment for me," said Gordon. "We'd have liked to get the three points but it was an incredible effort against a top quality side." Asked how the match ranked in his long career, he replied: "It's right up there. The atmosphere was just incredible. "The noise was unbelievable. There was a couple of times when I was absolutely screaming at Kolo [Toure] to leave the ball and he just couldn't hear me. I couldn't have shouted any louder." Gordon, capped 44 times for Scotland, insists his self-belief has not wavered since dropping to the bench and is hoping manager Brendan Rodgers will find it difficult to reinstate De Vries. "I've always been confident in what I'm able to do," he added. "It was other people saying my confidence was gone. "If I've not been selected, that's the manager's decision and I fully respect that. "The other side of that is that I want to play every game. "I think I've done pretty well in stages this season and if I can get a run in the team then hopefully I can go from strength to strength."

Craig Gordon hopes an impressive display against Manchester City can help him retain a regular starting position at Celtic.

Striker Nelson, 19, went off injured just minutes after being introduced as a substitute in Saturday's 1-1 draw with Plymouth Argyle. He has played four games for Pools since joining in January. "It's doubtful that he will be able to play again this season," head physio Ian Gallagher told the club website. Manager Dave Jones said: "It's so unfortunate for Andrew and for us. "He's come here looking to gain some senior experience, had done well in the games he's played and has slotted in well with the rest of the lads."

Hartlepool United loanee Andrew Nelson has returned to parent club Sunderland for treatment after scans showed he has damaged medial knee ligaments.

The 27-year-old Frenchman played 29 times for Leyton Orient in 2016-17, as they were relegated from League Two. He was out of contract, having joined the O's from Portsmouth on an 18-month deal in January 2016. Atangana made his name in England with Havant and Waterlooville, winning their player of the year in his solitary season at Westleigh Park before joining Pompey in 2014. He is the third close-season signing made by Cheltenham boss Gary Johnson - who himself signed a new contract on Friday - after Yeovil midfielder Kevin Dawson and Dover defender Jamie Grimes. Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page.

Cheltenham Town have signed midfielder Nigel Atangana on a two-year deal.

The bank had no firewall and used second-hand routers that cost $10 to connect to global financial networks. Better security and hardware would have hampered the attackers, Reuters said, quoting an official investigator. The hackers aimed to steal $1bn but made mistakes that led to the theft being spotted and stopped. A firewall would have made attempts to hack the bank more "difficult", Mohammad Shah Alam, a forensic investigator who works on the Bangladesh team investigating the theft, told Reuters. The second-hand hardware also meant that basic security steps to segregate network traffic were not taken, he said. The cheap routers have hindered the investigation, said Mr Alam, because they collected very little network data that could be used to pinpoint the hackers and shed light on their tactics. The hack took place in early February and involved hackers getting access to the core network of Bangladesh's central bank. They used this privileged access to transfer cash from Bangladesh's account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to other banks. A spelling mistake in one of the transfer orders alerted bank staff and meant the hackers only managed to steal $81m. This has been traced to accounts in the Philippines and to casinos in the same country. Most of the cash has yet to be recovered. Bank security experts said the bank should have spent more time and money protecting the network for its central bank. "You are talking about an organisation that has access to billions of dollars and they are not taking even the most basic security precautions," Jeff Wichman, a consultant with cyber firm Optiv, told Reuters.

Hackers managed to steal $80m (£56m) from Bangladesh's central bank because it skimped on network hardware and security software, reports Reuters.

The 2014 winner Pineau De Re was among those to miss the cut for the famous Aintree race. Lower-rated horses are balloted out, with The Romford Pele occupying the number 40 slot. There were no withdrawals in Thursday's final declaration stage. Four reserves are on standby should any runner pull out before 13:00 BST on Friday. Download your sweepstake kit here Pinstickers' guide Many Clouds is 7-1 favourite ahead of 10-1 chance The Last Samuri and 12-1 shot Silviniaco Conti. Coverage of the race, over 30 fences and nearly four-and-a-half miles, is expected to be followed by 600 million people worldwide. Organisers have put back the time of the race by an hour to 17:15 BST in an effort to further increase the audience. The National is a handicap chase, with each runner allotted a different weight to carry by the official handicapper Phil Smith. Some trainers are faced with the tricky task of trying to ensure their contenders perform well enough to get a rating which guarantees a run, without landing a big weight that hampers their chances. Pineau De Re is now in the twilight of his career, at the age of 13, and his rating has dropped. No horse of that age has won the National since Sergeant Murphy in 1923. The British Horseracing Authority has indicated it is open to reviewing the entry system ahead of next year's National. Top weight Many Clouds will seek to become the first horse since the legendary triple victor Red Rum in the 1970s to win back-to-back runnings. Victory would see jockey Leighton Aspell, who also triumphed aboard Pineau De Re two years ago, become the first rider to win three years running. Media playback is not supported on this device Officials believe modifications to the fences, and other alterations, introduced three years ago have helped improve safety. Since the changes, there have been no fatal injuries in the National itself, although two horses died in other races at the three-day meeting last year.

Last year's winner Many Clouds heads Saturday's Grand National field after the 40-runner line-up was confirmed.

Tory sources have said Mr Reckless, the AM for South Wales East, has held talks with Andrew RT Davies, leader of the Welsh Conservatives. An announcement is due on Thursday which would see Mr Reckless join the Tory group in Cardiff Bay. It is understood Mr Reckless will be an independent AM rather than re-join the Conservative Party. There is resistance to re-admitting Mr Reckless following his dramatic defection from the Conservatives to join UKIP in September 2014. The then-MP fought and won a by-election in his Rochester and Strood seat in November that year, but lost his seat in the May 2015 General Election. He was elected to the Assembly in May 2016 as UKIP won their first seats in Cardiff Bay, and he is currently chairman of the Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee. He had also worked as a researcher for MP Douglas Carswell, who left UKIP last month. The move would mean the Conservative group would become the second-largest, with 12 seats to Plaid Cymru's 11.

UKIP AM Mark Reckless is set to quit the party and vote with the Conservative group in the Assembly.

The stowaway was identified by Chinese media as a 16-year-old boy from Sichuan named Xu. He was found on 27 May, hiding in the cargo hold of flight EK303 from Shanghai. The official Xinhua news agency and the Chengdu Economic Daily reported the boy had said he did it because he had heard beggars in Dubai could make 470,000 yuan ($71,275; £49,300) a month. Earlier this year, there was a story being shared widely on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo with the hashtag #DubaiBeggarsMake470000YuanMonthly. The China Daily report said non-United Arab Emirates citizens were making a fortune begging, some making 270,000 dirhams (that is where the 470,000 yuan figure comes from). At the time, people online were saying they were "prepared to go begging in Dubai" and some posts showed flight tickets with the caption "Do not stop me going". After Tuesday's story about Xu the hashtag is trending once again, with some people expressing amusement and others being much more critical. "People with dreams deserve praises," said Chi Ma Xiao De Xiao Ma Fa. But Kai Ge Lu - Deng Ta Hui Lai said on Weibo: "Are people who praise the teenager being serious? Everyone knows that entering the country in that way is illegal. "Also, the teenager wants to reap without sowing if he wants to be a beggar in Dubai to make money." Some users were blaming the media for spreading rumours about the riches of Dubai. On CCTV's official Weibo account, a user left the comment: "Media that have been publishing inaccurate reports should bear responsibility. They should be held accountable." BBC Chinese also spoke to two travellers from Shanghai to Dubai who thought social media reports had misled the boy. So is there any truth to the story? The China Daily report appears to be based on a story on Gulf News from April this year when Dubai police arrested a beggar who they said was making 270,000 dirhams per month. Dubai police carry out campaigns to stop begging on the streets and the man was arrested as part of the raid. Police said they had caught "professional" beggars, some of them carrying passports with business or tourist visas, but did not say how many of the 59 beggars detained were found with large amounts of money. Reporting by Grace Tsoi, Yashan Zhao, Saira Asher and Kerry Allen

The story of a Chinese teenager who stowed away on a plane to Dubai, reportedly hoping to make money there as beggar, has sparked a conversation in China about misinformation.

As government colleagues speak boldly of the economic opportunities Brexit might offer and point to the better than expected economic news since the referendum, the Treasury is quietly warning there may still be pain ahead. Eeyore to the rest of the government's Tiggers, Number 11 is hoping for the best while preparing for the worst. Yes, the chancellor has said to colleagues, the mood has changed since the Autumn Statement. There will certainly be some "pats on the back" when it comes to the Budget on Wednesday. The economy is more resilient as consumers - buoyed by ultra-low interest rates, cheap borrowing and high employment - keep spending. And among the members of the European Union there is less talk of economic "punishment" as Brexit approaches - and more of "co-operation". I am told that one banking chief executive was even bold enough to tell the Prime Minister at a recent private meeting that in three years' time the UK's financial services sector and the economy could be in a better position than they are now. How to follow the Budget on the BBC Better growth also means the government's borrowing position is more positive than predicted just three months ago. Tax receipts are higher as stronger consumer spending and higher levels of business activity feed through to the Exchequer. The Office for Budget Responsibility - the official economic watchdog - is set to upgrade its growth forecast for 2017. And borrowing, it is likely to say, will come in at least £10bn lower than the official target. It should be remembered, however, that that target was significantly loosened last year. So, with a better economic outlook, will the Budget be a time for a few politically targeted giveaways? There will be some limited action. The Treasury was certainly stung by accusations following the Autumn Statement that Philip Hammond did not mention the NHS or social care funding despite predictions of a looming crisis. Expect more money for social care, more money for business rate relief and more money for schools. Individual tax thresholds - the point at which people start paying tax on their income - will also be increased, getting ever closer to the target of £12,500 of tax-free income promised in the Conservatives' 2015 manifesto. But each move will be limited. Yes, the Treasury will have a modicum of borrowing headroom, but officials have created a long list of headwinds that could knock the economy off course. Eeyore still wonders if an earthquake might strike. First, the tax base is eroding as more people join the "gig" economy - the self-employed who work for companies such as Uber and Deliveroo and pay less tax. Gig employers also pay less in national insurance and pension contributions. Mr Hammond wants a review of the tax status of the self-employed, ready for major announcements in the autumn, when the new cycle of November Budgets begins. Treasury officials are also convinced that some of thegood news on increased tax receipts are "one-offs" - changes to self-assessment rules and corporation tax payments that will not be repeated. Then there are the fears about the Brexit process, when officials worry that "good days and bad days" news coverage will affect economic confidence. Inflation is also on the march, government borrowing costs on its £1.7 trillion debt load are rising and the UK's age-old productivity problem refuses to go away. Mr Hammond and Theresa May are both fiscal conservatives - cleaving strongly to the idea that "balancing the books" between what a government receives in taxes and spends on public services is the only way to maintain economic stability and growth. The Prime Minister apparently often interjects in policy committee meetings with the question: "Where is the money coming from?" Given that background, better economic news and better borrowing figures are not about to lead to big Budget giveaways. Eeyore just wouldn't countenance it.

"We haven't had an earthquake lately," was Eeyore's tart response when asked about forecasts that the weather can only improve in the Hundred Acre Wood.

Moments after Chris Evans announced he was stepping down as a presenter on Top Gear, Twitter users took to social media to comment about the number of recent high-profile resignations in politics and sport. The writer Will Black started the hashtag #SuggestAJobForFarage after Nigel Farage stepped down as UKIP leader on Monday morning. So it was probably inevitable that the Top Gear presenter's vacancy was among the job opportunities suggested on social media for Mr Farage. Others thought another political figure should be considered for the post, although Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is not considering any new career opportunities. As social media bets were placed on who should take up Evans's now vacant post, some Twitter users suggested Boris Johnson as a possible replacement. While others thought there was only one man for the job. @RobertRobmurphy tweeted: "Bring back Jeremy Clarkson." Another Twitter user suggested Matt Le Blanc's co-star in Friends should join him on the show. @_EveStarks posted: "Really hope they replace Chris Evans with Matthew Perry so the Friends bromance can continue." Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow threw his hat into the ring. And there were some rank outsiders for the position. Produced by Rozina Sini, BBC's UGC and Social News team

You might have noticed your social media timeline full of pictures like this.

Forbes said Vergara's role as Gloria in Modern Family and some lucrative product endorsements helped her earn $43m (£32.6m) in the last 12 months. It marks the fifth year the Colombian-American actress has topped the chart. Forbes also said she earned more than any of her male counterparts in the past year. The Big Bang Theory's Kaley Cuoco was the second-highest paid actress, earning $24.5m (£18.6m). Cuoco tied with Vergara at the top of last year's Forbes list, when both actresses earned $28.5m (£21.6m). The Mindy Project's Mindy Kaling is the biggest climber in this year's chart. Her earnings of $15m (£11.4m) helped her to rise from eighth place in 2015 to third this year. Mariska Hargitay, who appears in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Grey's Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo rounded off the top five. Source: Forbes This year's highest new entry on the Forbes list was Priyanka Chopra, who appears in ABC drama Quantico. She was the eighth highest earner with $11m (£8.4m). Chopra, who is well known in India, is set to become more familiar to western audiences next year when she stars in Baywatch alongside Dwayne Johnson - the world's highest paid actor. Scandal star Kerry Washington, Stana Katic from Castle, The Good Wife's Julianna Margulies and Vergara's Modern Family co-star Julie Bowen also featured in this year's top 10. Follow us on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, on Instagram, or if you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

Modern Family star Sofia Vergara has retained her title as the highest paid actress on US television, according to the latest Forbes magazine rich list.

Visitors are expected to flock to The Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh (RBGE) at the peak of the plant's pungency over the next three days. The giant Amorphophallus Titanum has a strong smell of rotting flesh. Horticulturist Sadie Barber says she was ''thrilled to finally see and smell" the plant after "12 years of careful cultivation''. The plant, which has the heaviest corm ever recorded (153.9kgs) has produced seven leaves in the 12 years that it has been at the garden, so horticulturists are "delighted to finally" have a flower. Ms Barber, who was gifted the corm in 2003 by Hortus Botanicus in Leiden, Netherlands, said: "We are thrilled to finally see, and smell, this incredible curiosity of the plant world after 12 years of careful cultivation by the Horticulture team at RBGE. "The spadix has so far reached an impressive height of 255cm and may even grow a few centimetres more in the next days. "It really is one of the most extraordinary flowering plants we have ever seen, and great to think that something that grows naturally so far away can be enjoyed by visitors to the Garden here in Edinburgh.''

One of the world's largest and smelliest flowers has blossomed for the first time in Scotland.

The two-time Australian Open champion, who gave birth to Leo in December, won 6-3 4-6 7-6 (9-7) against Japan's Risa Ozaki at the Mallorca Open. It was the 27-year-old Belarusian's first match since losing at the French Open in June 2016. Azarenka was sixth in the world when she announced her pregnancy last July. She was a game away from defeat when play was suspended on Tuesday because of fading light. Find out how to get into tennis in our special guide. But she showed her trademark resilience to twice break 74th-ranked Ozaki's serve when they returned on Wednesday, then going on to fight back from 5-3 down in the tie-break. Azarenka was given a wildcard to play in the Mallorca Open, which is scheduled to be her only competitive action before Wimbledon. The former Wimbledon quarter-finalist has used her protected ranking to play at the All England Club in the tournament which starts on 3 July.

Former world number one Victoria Azarenka saved three match points before winning on her comeback from a year out after the birth of her son.

After seeing the Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield performing with his guitar or Scott Kelly of Nasa doing airborne somersaults, many might wonder if the ISS has a serious point. The reality is that everyone sent up there faces a very busy timetable which involves managing a range of experiments that make use of the state of weightlessness. The space station is a giant laboratory and every inhabitant is expected to get involved in the research. Just by being in space, Tim himself will serve as a lab rat, allowing his body to be monitored in great detail - with 23 different sets of measurements in all. By the end of his mission, he will be all too familiar with the regular processes of gathering samples of his blood and urine. Space research is not for the squeamish. But if there is ever to be a long trek through space to Mars or even beyond, medical knowledge of how humans cope will be essential. So some of the research is aimed specifically at gaining new insights that will benefit future generations of spacefarers while other experiments are designed to have a relevance to life here on Earth. One European Space Agency project is investigating the properties of metals in a level of detail that cannot be matched down on the ground because of the influence of gravity. Prof Mike Cruise of the University of Birmingham, who chairs ESA's human spaceflight science advisory committee, told me that the work "sounds really obscure but could have quite an effect on all our lives". Until now, any analysis of how metals behave is almost guaranteed to be undermined because gravity will force the sample to touch the walls of whatever container is being used and that means it will collect impurities. So the Electromagnetic Levitator experiment - in the European Columbus module - has a clever technique for allowing blobs of metal to be heated and then cooled while being suspended in the air. While this happens, measurements are made of the characteristics of the metal, all without the complicating effects of gravity risking the integrity of the research. Prof Cruise said: "If you look around your car, it probably has 20 or even 40 items made by casting molten metal into a mold - a process that requires huge knowledge of the properties, of how sticky or viscous the metal might be. "If we got better measurements, our casting could become far more efficient with fewer parts with holes in them - this seemingly innocuous experiment that could have a pretty huge industrial impacts." So the aim is to generate a far better understanding of key materials, and scientists from the Universities of Greenwich and Leeds are among those making use of the results. Another project, called Fluid Shifts and managed by Nasa, is exploring the question of pressure within the brain. Astronauts have often reported problems with their vision and the assumption is that this is the result of fluids shifting within the body and particularly moving towards the head. Researchers at University Hospital Southampton NHS Trust have found a connection between the brain and the ear, and a better grasp of how this process works could help with a new technique for assessing brain pressure by taking measurements in the ear. A UK company, Marchbanks Measurements Systems, has come up with a device that can detect slight changes in the inner ear. The company's founder Dr Robert Marchbanks told us:" It is crucial to the understanding of how brain pressure changes. It is a different environment, there is no gravity but that is important to our understanding of brain pressure." And while some research is aimed at improving human health, another focus is on helping answer the fundamental question of whether we are alone in the universe. Since micro-organisms such as bacteria have been found thriving in the most inhospitable corners of Earth - from the deep-frozen Antarctic to boiling hydrothermal vents - the next step is to explore how they cope with space. If it is the case that life got started here because rudimentary forms of it were delivered by a colliding asteroid or comet, the obvious question is whether it is possible that life-forms could survive in an icy vacuum or fiery descent through the atmosphere. So a series of experiments called Expose, involving the University of Edinburgh, places different organisms outside the space station to see their response to cosmic rays, solar radiation and intense temperature changes. It is only in the last three to four years that the ISS has been able to host so much research. Financial problems, and the loss of the US space shuttle Columbia in 2003, meant that construction took far longer than planned - and for years the few crew on board could spare little time for science. That has now changed and the first results from ISS experiments are being released, but it is still early days to judge the space station's value to research. Prof Cruise said: "There is a lot of good science. It's not all headline Nobel Prize work, but the nature of the experiments means it would never get into Nobel territory. "It's going to take us another five years or so to judge what that scientific contribution has been". The ISS was conceived at the end of the Cold War as a way of cementing friendship between the United States and Russia and to keep Russian scientists from being lured away to countries such as Iran. Now it's become a platform for international research, and a novice British astronaut will play his part. Tim Peake in space: Want to know more? Special report page: For the latest news, analysis and video Video: How the view from space affects your mind Explainer: The journey into space Social media: Twitter looks ahead to lift-off

After all the drama of the launch, what will Tim Peake actually do during his six long months on the International Space Station?

A deal was made by the two main parties and the British and Irish governments to resolve a crisis at Stormont. Solutions were found on issues over paramilitarism and welfare reform. But Deputy Chief Constable Drew Harris said a lack of consensus over how to deal with the past was a let-down to police and Troubles victims' families. DCC Harris said an extra £160m of government funding to tackle dissident republicans that was agreed in the deal was much needed. He added the agreement's initiatives to tackle paramilitarism and organised crime were also positive. But a proposed new independent Historical Investigations Unit, which would have taken on the Police Service of Northern Ireland's (PSNI) responsibility for outstanding Troubles murder investigations, has not yet been approved. DCC Harris said: "We are on record as saying the formation of a Historical Investigations Unit would provide an opportunity for a more structured and coherent approach to dealing with the past, allowing the PSNI to concentrate primarily on keeping people safe today." He said that in absence of that body the PSNI would have to ensure its "finite resources are used in the most effective manner". "We must balance keeping people safe today with our continued duties in relation to the past. "The reality is the financial challenges facing us will continue to have a direct impact on how we respond to the demands of the past and the pace at which those demands can be serviced." Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness said talks on the legacy of the past failed because the government would not commit to full disclosure of classified documents relating to Troubles incidents on national security grounds. He added: "That pretext for blocking disclosure is clearly nonsense as much of the information families are looking for is related to events 30 to 40 years ago." Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers, who helped broker the agreement, is to meet relatives of Troubles victims to discuss their concerns over the deal. It had been a "bitter pill for victims to swallow", according the the victims' commissioner Judith Thompson. She said victims "deserve respect and consideration and they cannot be shunted off into a dead end". "It is not good enough to build up hopes for the most comprehensive set of proposals yet to address victims' and survivors' needs and then fail to deliver." Ms Thompson added that politicians must give a timescale for "the issues that are being put in the 'too difficult' box once again". Alan McBride, whose wife was killed in the IRA's 1993 bombing of a fishmonger's on Belfast's Shankill Road, said he was uncertain whether legacy issues would ever be resolved. "My frustration is that they're not going to be able to agree on this, so therefore there's going to be another opportunity wasted," he said. "There is talking still on going, and that has got to be welcomed, because we have to give out hope to victims and survivors." Mike Ritchie, a case work manager for the Relatives for Justice victims' group, said that while he was disappointed with the outcome of the political negotiations, he would prefer no deal to "a bad deal". "To set up a bad process again would be very difficult for victims' families," Mr Ritchie said. "If we're going to have a deal let's have a good deal." He added that pressure would remain on Northern Ireland's politicians to deal with legacy issues. "This isn't going away. I think that we'll be back talking about this in due course."

A senior police officer has said he is disappointed the latest Northern Ireland political agreement has not addressed the legacy of the Troubles.

Haig's side have won the past six European Nations Cup (ENC) titles - the division below the Six Nations - finished third in their 2015 World Cup pool and completed an unbeaten Pacific Islands tour this summer. There is no imminent prospect of a change to the Six Nations format, despite alterations to rugby's international calendar after the 2019 World Cup. But Haig believes the status quo is hampering Georgia's development, and their World Cup preparations. "Absolutely, we've outgrown the ENC," Haig told BBC Scotland. "You're not being disrespectful to the other teams - you're saying the obvious. "That's why we've started being public about our desire to get into an expanded Six Nations. Not a promotion/relegation system, that's never been our standpoint, it's always been that the Six Nations gets expanded to seven or eight teams, depending on what the current partners feel is applicable." The New Zealander argues: Almost every Tier Two nation agitates for more frequent fixtures against the Six Nations and Rugby Championship heavyweights, but Georgia's case for greater challenges is compelling. The glaring extent of their supremacy in the ENC can be outlined thus: in the last six championships, they've lost just two matches from the 30 played. Their cumulative points difference reads: for 948, against 264. Georgia have lost only once since last year's World Cup - a narrow defeat by Japan - and completed an unbeaten Pacific tour of Tonga, Fiji, and Samoa this summer. Last weekend, they beat the touring Samoans in Tbilisi. A Tier One nation has never played a Test in Georgia, and outside World Cup pool matches, their fixture with Scotland on 26 November will be only the fourth time in 13 years the Lelos have had the opportunity to pit themselves against top-class opposition. "How can you improve [in that situation]? You can't," says Haig. "The Test schedule for the Tier Ones is already done up to 2019, and the big boys sit around the table and work out a deal. "Effectively there are a couple of weekends free to be filled with Tier Two teams. Then we go to a meeting, all the Tier Two guys go into a room and everybody scraps over what's left. "We all have fisticuffs about who's getting what. I'm being facetious to some degree, but that's not too far away from what happens. "It's not easy - that's the summary of that conversation. It's just not easy for Tier Two teams to get more than one or two Tests every year against Tier One teams. "I'm not saying World Rugby doesn't look after us, they've been very good to us and helped us develop, but we need more. "The challenge is that every Tier Two team says they want more, but it's how you prioritise that that's going to be key." Alterations to the present Six Nations format have long been mooted - outgoing World Rugby president Bernard Lapasset called for a promotion/relegation play-off, with the ENC winners playing the team that finishes bottom in the Six Nations, as he left office in April. That seems a fair proposal on the face of it, but Haig says Georgia have to be cannier in their demands. "The reality is, if you were one of those six partners, not one would want to put their seat in jeopardy, and if it was me sitting in their position, I wouldn't either," says the New Zealander. "But if you go to the negotiating table and don't have any cards to play, you've then got to say, 'there's no threat here of anybody losing their seat, all we're asking for is you put one more seat at the table'. "I think for us, that's the smarter way to go. It's also less threatening to the existing partners and it means they're helping to grow the game in eastern Europe. "There's a massive potential market in eastern Europe, and we would say by including Georgia, or Romania or Russia, you might be able to capitalise on that." The prospect of a global season, a closer alignment of the northern and southern hemisphere calendars, has been hotly debated, but Haig fears that scenario would only condense the international windows, and thereby reduce the already scant opportunities for Georgia to take on the "big boys". "We feel if we can't get World Rugby giving us more Tier One Tests, then the obvious solution would be for us to be included in an expanded Six Nations," he says. "Automatically, you get six more Tier One games. And it wouldn't have to go outside the current Test windows. "It would fit into both our calendar and the Six Nations calendar. Nothing has to change, apart from the fact we'd get much better rugby. "And with much better rugby consistently, we'd perform better at a World Cup. That's where we see our future, and that's where we'll keep having those conversations." Domestically, there is broad scope for growth. Georgia, says Haig, is a nation where rugby is on a rapid upward trajectory, and sell-out Tbilisi crowds of 50,000-plus for ENC fixtures are the norm. But in his 30-man November squad, over half play their club rugby in France or England, rather than the semi-professional Georgian leagues. Meanwhile, as they seek innovative methods to combat Anglo-French wealth, the Pro12 league's representatives have been exploring opportunities to incorporate North American teams or franchises. The New Zealander says they've made enquiries with the Georgian union too - and those enquiries are most welcome. "Our union has been approached by the Pro12 - it was just the initial discussions, but we've indicated that absolutely we'd love to have a team in that competition," he says. "We're trying to put our players, whether at international or local level, into better competitions, so that they learn the game and get better. "It's a pathway for our younger players as well. To have a fully professional team in a competition like that, would do us wonders. "That's an obvious step that we'd like to continue conversations so that hopefully we can within a couple of years get that up and running." The Georgian game has one vital fillip, absent from many of its Tier Two counterparts, that may help smooth its ascent - money. Where the Pacific teams of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga are hampered by modest revenue and ramshackle infrastructure, Georgian rugby is bankrolled by former prime minister, Bidzina Ivanishvili. Forbes Magazine puts Ivanishvili's net worth at $4.8bn (£3.89bn). That's over $1bn more than US president-elect Donald Trump ($3.7bn), and just shy of Richard Branson ($4.9bn). In almost five years as head coach, Haig has never actually met the man whose wealth is propelling his vision, but its impact is apparent everywhere. "When I first came here and saw our high-performance base, not even New Zealand had something like that, and probably still doesn't," says Haig. "We have our own 27-room hotel, swimming pool, commercial kitchen, gymnasium, grandstand, one artificial field, one natural field, fully-lit to international standards. "It's incredible what we've got here, and we've continued to improve our high-performance centre. "We've just built a 14x14m fully-covered wrestling dojo that we do a lot of our contact work in. "Prior to the World Cup, I said, it'd be great if we had this, because it'll help us get better, and bang - it was built in 10 minutes. When you have the ability to do that, it helps everything we're doing. "He's not at all a rugby fanatic. He's a very private man. He understands what rugby's doing for the country and the people, and that's why he's happy to invest in the infrastructure, and our day-to-day costs are always covered by the government. "If we've got the opportunity to be sitting at that Six Nations table, it becomes a whole different landscape for Georgian rugby. "And I'd be pretty confident that whatever was necessary in terms of funding or building more infrastructure, he'd be the first to put his hand up and say, yes, we can do that." Haig remains upbeat that as he continues to add tactical nous, game understanding and more polished skill-sets to the historically formidable physical profile of the Georgian squad, and its momentum continues to snowball, there is light at the end of the tunnel. He sees parallels with Argentina, whose case for top-tier rugby eventually grew so irrefutable that they were invited to join the Rugby Championship in 2012 and Super Rugby in 2016, with most of their Test squad contracted to Buenos Aires-based franchise, the Jaguares. And Haig is increasingly reassured by what he perceives to be a change in attitude among the powers-that-be - he says the notion of a bigger Six Nations no longer seems so distant. "Rugby in Georgia just keeps growing," says Haig. "Player numbers for kids are growing; it's getting bigger and bigger. "As we build more infrastructure throughout the country, more stadiums, more fields, it's the old adage - if you build it, they will come, and that's been the mantra for us. "If one of those top nations came to Georgia to play, I can guarantee you we'd be packing out the biggest stadium in Georgia, and it'd be an atmosphere they maybe hadn't experienced for some time. "I understand that London, Paris, Rome, are all very nice places, but again I think if you are a touring team or tourist coming to play or watch a game in Tbilisi will be an experience you probably haven't had before. "We're certainly pretty confident within the next four or five years, it's going to happen. "And the first time it does, it's going to be a big occasion for the country. That's what we keep holding onto - that one day, it's going to happen, and for our country that'll be awesome."

Georgia head coach Milton Haig believes his side merit a place in an expanded Six Nations Championship, and says Tier Two nations are "fighting for scraps" in the battle to earn fixtures against top opposition.

Baroness Newlove said 15% of victims had been given the opportunity to make a victim statement in 2015/16. She said there had been little change since 2013 - when figures were first complied - and "more needs to be done". The Ministry of Justice said it will spend £70m helping victims this year. As part of an official code of practice, every victim who reports a crime is entitled to write a statement about how the offence has affected their life. If a suspect is convicted in court, a victim statement can be read out before sentencing - as well as later at a parole hearing. However, in a report about the situation in England and Wales, Baroness Newlove said victims given had been given the chance of making statements in only 15% of cases. The right of victims to make a statement should be enshrined in law, the commissioner added, with sanctions for police and other agencies if they did not offer the service. "Enough is enough," said Baroness Newlove, who has campaigned against violence since her husband, Garry, was attacked and killed by youths outside their Warrington home in 2007. "No-one can claim that victims are 'at the heart of the criminal justice system' when these figures suggest that the Victims' Code is no more than a wish list," she added. "More needs to be done to support victims of crime." She added: "There are laws in place to protect the rights of offenders - but nothing to protect the rights of victims. Yet again victims' rights are being ignored." A Ministry of Justice spokesman welcomed the report, saying it would consider its findings carefully. The government has allocated £67.85m to Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) in 2016/17, and again in 2017/18, to support victims of crime, the spokesman said. "It is vital that blameless victims see swift and certain justice, which is why we have protected the victims' budget and given PCCs almost £70m to support victims in their areas. "We have long committed to strengthening victims' rights, to ensure the most vulnerable get the support they deserve," the spokesman added.

All victims of crime should be given the chance to make a statement in court about the impact the offence has had on their lives, the victims' commissioner for England and Wales has said.

Author and academic Sir Anthony Seldon says China's strict schooling style needs to change or its youngsters will suffer, along with its economy. Chinese schools, often criticised for rote and repetitive learning, should be more holistic, says Sir Anthony. The comments come during Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the UK. In a speech at the Institute of Education on Wednesday, the president seemed to take on board some of these notions. He said, after watching a BBC programme recreating a Chinese school in England, he had realised that "the British have learned the virtues of strict discipline" from China. The Chinese, meanwhile, had been learning the advantages of recreation, he added. "Chinese children do not play enough. They should play more," Mr Xi said. The school day in China's state schools starts at 7am with various physical exercises. Amongst other daily constitutionals, such as Tai Chi, pupils are encouraged to massage their eyes to keep them healthy and get them ready for the day. The children have two meal breaks in the 12-hour school day and will exercise together every day - sometimes twice a day. The teaching style is focused on note-taking and repetition, otherwise known as rote learning. This is a great contrast to England's more interactive teaching style, where pupils are encouraged to participate in class and make judgments for themselves. The Chinese believe children learn faster and better by rote learning Chinese children live under the One Child Policy and feel the weight of responsibility on their shoulders, so there is great importance placed on their educational achievements. Good exam results are associated with social status and success and entire families can pin all their hopes on the single child. Chinese pupils learn the same subjects as English school children in the main, but are combined with practical work experience around the school campus, as well as Chinese culture, morality and ethics. One feature of Chinese schools that England's teachers may welcome is that the pupils almost always are required to clean their own classrooms. China's schools educate an estimated 192,000,000 children - a fifth of the world's school age children. In a speech in Shanghai on Friday, Sir Anthony, now vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham, said: "China has some of the top schools in the world and is leading the way with maths and science." Indeed Shanghai and Hong Kong are among the top performing districts in the world, according to the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development. Sir Anthony added: "It is the 'human' skills that cannot be replaced by computers that Chinese schools and schools worldwide need to be giving far greater focus. "Many schools are robbing the young of the opportunity to blossom into the unique individuals that they are because too many teachers think that solely cramming pupils' heads full of facts is education. "Many education systems focus on exams being the sole validators of school, but recent research suggests that jobs with a big growth in salary have been those that require a high degree of social skills," he adds. Sir Anthony, former master of leading private school Wellington College, is a great advocate of protecting and enhancing pupils' well-being in order to maximise their potential to learn and express themselves confidently. Like many private schools, Wellington College has an international school in China, where it offers a traditional English public school education.

China's education system is robbing its young people of the chance to become unique individuals, a leading educationalist says.

Djokovic won 6-3 7-5 in a largely commanding performance. The 29-year-old, who has now won seven titles this year, has beaten the Japanese on nine successive occasions. Djokovic, who was beaten in the third round at Wimbledon by Sam Querrey, will represent Serbia at the Rio Olympics. "I don't need to explain that every athlete dreams of being a part of the Olympic Games," he said. "I'm competing in singles and doubles. "Hopefully I'll get at least one medal."

World number one Novak Djokovic won his first title since his surprise exit from Wimbledon with a straight-sets win over Japan's Kei Nishikori in the final of the Rogers Cup in Toronto.

Trains from Nottingham Victoria Station used to take passengers to destinations around England, including London, York, Bristol and Oxford. It was demolished in 1967, a year after the final service to London left the station. The site is now home to a shopping centre. Following the station's closure, all rail traffic was sent to Nottingham Midland, now the city's central station. Exhibition organiser Janine Tanner said: "It was one of the most beautiful stations there has ever been. "People used to refer to it as a cathedral. "I think the majority of people were horrified when it closed. "Obviously there were people who thought it should stay but the general consensus was that it shouldn't have closed." The station opened in 1900 and was named after Queen Victoria but its owners cited falling passenger numbers and increased car travel in the 1960s as the reason for its closure. All that remains now as a reminder of the site's railway past is the clock tower, a tunnel entrance and a retaining wall. Pictures highlighting its past are on show at the Nottingham Industrial Museum for the next three weekends. The images then go on display at the Great Central Railway at Ruddington and the Victoria Shopping Centre.

An exhibition of photographs has gone on show to mark 50 years since the demise of "one of the most beautiful stations there has ever been".

Seal wardens on the National Trust (NT) reserve at Blakeney Point have recorded 180 more grey seal pups compared to this time last year. Coastal ranger Ajay Tegala said the location is a "fantastic" breeding site as "human disturbance is minimal." Mr Tegala predicts up to 1,800 pups could be born by the end of February. "The seals like Blakeney Point as it has beaches and dunes which are safe and easy places to have a pup with no predators," he said. Last year, 1,566 pups were counted during the four month breeding season at Blakeney Point, a split of shingle and sand jutting out into the North Sea. Seals have been breeding on the site since about 2001, when just 25 were recorded. Pup numbers reached over 1,000 for the first time during the 2012-13 breeding season, with newborns now increasing by about 25% year-on-year. Blakeney has become well known for its seals with thousands of tourist taking boat trips to see the colonies each year. Mr Tegala said: "We do a pup count twice a week and comparing this year to last year we're almost 200 ahead so it looks like the number will continue to increase and another record-breaking year is on the cards." Source: BBC Nature Visitors have been flocking to the north Norfolk coast to see the seals, prompting the NT to warn people to keep their distance and keep all dogs on leads.

More than 900 seal pups have been born on a north Norfolk nature reserve in the last three weeks giving experts hopes of another record breaking year.

It could lead to new ways of diagnosing the condition and of testing the effectiveness of new drugs. The technology, reported in the journal Neuron, can identify inside a living brain clumps of a protein called tau that is closely linked to the disease. Alzheimer's Research UK said it was promising work. Alzheimer's disease is a problem for researchers trying to come up with a cure. The brain starts to die years before any symptoms are detected, which means drugs are probably given too late. A diagnosis of Alzheimer's cannot be made with absolute certainty until a patient has died and their brain is examined. It is also not 100% clear what is the cause of the dementia and what are just symptoms. One protein, called tau, is very closely linked to the disease, with tangles of tau thought to be one way in which brain cells are killed. The team, lead by the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Chiba, used positron emission tomography to build a 3D picture of tau in the brain. They developed a chemical that could bind to tau and then be detected during a brain scan. Tests on mice and people with suspected Alzheimer's showed the technology could detect tau. Dr Makoto Higuchi, from the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Japan, said: "Positron emission tomography images of tau accumulation... provide robust information on brain regions developing or at risk for tau-induced neuronal death." The research is at an early stage, but it could eventually lead to an actual test for Alzheimer's disease. It might also allow researchers to closely follow the impact drugs that affect tau have on the brain. Another protein - beta amyloid - is also linked to Alzheimer's and can be detected in similar tests. Dr Eric Karran, director of research at Alzheimer's Research UK, said: "This promising early study highlights a potential new method for detecting tau - a key player in both Alzheimer's and frontotemporal dementia - in the living brain. "With new drugs in development designed to target tau, scans capable of visualising the protein inside the brain could be important for assessing whether treatments in clinical trials are hitting their target. "If this method is shown to be effective, such a scan could also be a useful aid for providing people with an accurate diagnosis, as well as for monitoring disease progression."

Pioneering brain imaging that can detect the build-up of destructive proteins linked to Alzheimer's has been developed by Japanese scientists.

The Victory Medal belonged to Pte William John Boaden of the 3rd Battalion Devonshire Regiment. It was found in a farmer's field in Porthcawl by a team of metal detecting enthusiasts. Researcher Stephen Lyons then tracked down Pte Boaden's family in Tiverton, Devon, where he was born in 1897. But it is still not known how the medal came to end up in the field. Pte Boaden signed up on the outbreak of the First World War aged 17. His regiment served in France and Belgium, Mesopotamia, Salonika, Macedonia, Egypt, Palestine and Italy. The medal is badly damaged but Pte Boaden's name and regimental number are still visible. Chris Jeffreys made the discovery after sitting down on a fallen tree to take a break from metal detecting. "I didn't have many finds that day," he said, until his detector picked up a "beautiful signal" around the tree. "The area had been covered dozens of times before, so whether the tree falling disturbed something I don't know. "It's the first medal I've found," he added. "I was overjoyed." Keen to unravel the mystery of how the medal ended up in the field, Mr Jeffreys and his fellow metal detecting enthusiasts appealed for help to find out what happened to Pte Boaden. A First World War expert based in Cwmcarn, researcher and historian Stephen Lyons answered the appeal. Following a tenacious and at times pain-staking research, he tracked down daughter-in-law Moira Boaden and his grandson Stephen Boaden living in Tiverton, Devon. Mr Jeffreys recently met them to present the medal. Mrs Boaden said she was "delighted" as she never knew of its existence and that the family "will treasure it". "It's so interesting hearing all the history of my father-in-law." Stephen Boaden said he had nothing of his grandfather's, not even a photograph, until recently. "It was a very nice surprise," he said. "To find out so much information about what he went through and who he was - it gives him a personality." He added that the medal was not just something that belonged to his grandfather, but was "evidence of his service to his country."

A war medal found in a field in Bridgend county has been returned to its rightful owners almost a century after it was awarded.

The discovery of the body in Northampton is being linked to the disappearance of Adeyemi Olugbuyi, 32, known as "Big Man", in September 2013. Nigerian Mr Olugbuyi, who was last seen in North Holme Court, Thorplands, had been involved in an "altercation" in the area. Police said officers were treating the death as murder. Known as "Baz" or "Big Man", he is believed to have been involved in an altercation in the area just after 08:00 BST on 13 September. Click here for more on this story and other news from Northamptonshire Since that time, he has not been in any contact with family or friends. A police spokesman said: "Investigators believe the body is likely to have been there for some considerable amount of time, possibly months or years." Police said formal identification had yet to take place. Officers have been searching green areas around Billing Brook Road, where the body was found, and were using a dog unit at the scene.

The body of a man found in a hedge by litter pickers might have lain undetected for years, police have said.

The West Indian Carnival in Leeds was launched in 1967 and once again will take over Potternewton Park for the August bank holiday weekend. An exhibition recording its heritage, political and cultural legacy is planned for the city's Tetley gallery. There will also be a week of new plays commemorating carnival at West Yorkshire Playhouse. Live updates and more from Yorkshire Additionally, it has been announced that an illuminated night carnival will kick-off the annual arts and light festival Light Night in October. A recreation of the Sun Goddess, the first Leeds Carnival Queen costume, will be featured at the exhibition from August to October. The celebration of food, music and culture will culminate again in a parade through Chapeltown and Harehills. An estimated 160,000 revellers attended last year's carnival, organisers said. Arthur France initiated it after becoming homesick for his native St Kitts and Nevis. Mr France, head of the organising committee, said: "When you come to carnival it is electric, so many things going on, beautiful costumes, beautiful colours, beautiful music." However, attempts to bring the parade into the city centre have been shelved. Mr France said he was "very sad and upset" at the council decision but added that it would not "dampen my spirits". Councillor Judith Blake, leader of Leeds City Council, said: "A lot of events are happening on the bank holiday weekend and with the advice it just wouldn't be possible." Ms Blake added: "The oldest carnival in Europe is here in Leeds. We are so keen to make sure as a city we come together and everyone celebrates an incredible achievement." She praised Mr France as a "legend" that had made "an absolutely fantastic contribution heading up a brilliant team of people".

Plans have been announced for the "oldest carnival in Europe" to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

The 19-year-old is in her second year of competition at the Federation Internationale du Ski (FIS) snowboard cross World Cup circuit. Qualification for PyeongChang 2018 depends on points accumulated from races during the season of the Games. The 2018 games' opening ceremony takes place on 9 February 2018 in South Korea. Potter, who is from Bangor, said: "It [the Winter Olympics] is definitely on my mind, I'm still part of Olympic qualification. "I am just taking every race one step at a time and I'm not getting too ahead of myself and I am aiming for that. I just want to see how things turn out "I have still got time, I have still got a year to go." She competes in Germany this weekend looking to improve on her season best finish of 26th place claimed in the USA on 21 January.

Welsh snowboarder Maisie Potter says the 2018 Winter Olympics are on her mind a year away from the games' start.

Trago Mills, which runs three stores in Cornwall and Devon, was granted planning permission in 1999 but work was stalled by several issues including access and land reclamation. Now, work officially gets under way next to Cyfarthfa Retail Park on Friday. The development is due to be completed by spring 2018. It will include a new store, cafe and garden centre, as well as warehouse, offices and parking. There are also plans to develop the site further with a petrol station and leisure facilities. The company was founded in the 1960s by Mike Robertson, father of current chairman, Bruce Robertson. He said: "Whilst rather later than anticipated, having first acquired the former Butterley Brickworks site in the mid-90s, we're delighted to be starting work on the Merthyr store. "Once completed, our new store will be a bold and complementary addition to the thriving retail environment already existing at Cyfarthfa."

Work is starting on a long-awaited £40m retail and leisure complex in Merthyr Tydfil, set to create 400 jobs.

Michael McConville told the BBC he took Mr Adams' remarks "as a threat". Asked about Mr McConville's allegation, Mr Adams said: "I didn't say that." He was released without charge on Sunday after being questioned for four days about the 1972 killing. The Sinn Féin president claimed there was a "sustained, malicious, untruthful campaign" against him. It is believed police had wanted to charge Mr Adams with IRA membership. It is likely that police would have considered such a charge before he was released on Sunday night, but did not have sufficient evidence for a reasonable prospect of prosecution. Jean McConville, a 37-year-old widow and mother-of-10, was abducted from her Belfast home, shot and secretly buried. Her body was found on a beach in County Louth in 2003. She was kidnapped from her home in Divis Flats in west Belfast in front of her children after being wrongly accused of being an informer for the British Army. Her son Michael said his family would fight "to the bitter end" for justice. He said he had met Mr Adams around the time that the then Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan was drawing up a report that would go on to dismiss claims Mrs McConville was an informer. Mr McConville said: "Gerry Adams says to me, 'Michael, you are getting a letter of support from the republican people'. "He says 'if you release the names I hope you are ready for the backlash' - I took it as a threat." Mr Adams denied making such a comment. "If Michael McConville wants to give names, he should do so - that's entirely his right," he said. Mr Adams, the former MP for West Belfast and current representative for County Louth in the Irish parliament, presented himself for interview by prior arrangement with detectives on Wednesday night. He was then arrested under the terrorism act for questioning about the IRA murder of Mrs McConville. BBC News understands there was insufficient evidence to charge Mr Adams with any offence. The Sinn Fein president was questioned for four days in connection with the murder of Jean McConville and membership of the IRA. He has strongly denied all those allegations. A file will be sent to the public prosecution service in Northern Ireland later this week but it is thought that unless significant new evidence comes to light, he will not face any charge. Speaking at a news conference in Belfast following his release, Mr Adams said he had contacted Northern Ireland police two months ago about the McConville case. He questioned the timing of his arrest in the middle of an election campaign and claimed they could have used discretion rather than "pernicious, coercive legislation" to deal with the matter. He again said he was innocent of any involvement in Mrs McConville's murder. He said Sinn Féin remained fully committed to the political process in Northern Ireland. "The IRA is gone, it's finished," he said. "I want to make it clear that I support the PSNI." Northern Ireland Justice Minister David Ford said he "saw no reason" why Mr Adams' release without charge would damage confidence in the police. "With the way that Northern Ireland politics operates, there is never a good time to do anything - if it had been before Christmas it would have been the Haass talks; as soon as the election campaign is over, people would be talking about a difficult marching season," said the Alliance Party leader. "You could always produce an excuse for the police not to do their duty at any time." The decision to release Mr Adams means that prosecution lawyers will decide if charges will be brought. The file sent by the police to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) will detail the evidence gathered. It will be up to PPS lawyers to decide if there is enough evidence to bring any charges and what those charges would be. The test for prosecution is met if there is sufficient evidence that can be admitted in court to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction. Lawyers must also decide if the prosecution is required in the public interest. It could take some time for police to prepare the file for the PPS, with prosecutors then taking a further period to assess whatever evidence is presented. Meanwhile, one of Mrs McConville's daughters, Helen McKendry, has said she is hopeful that the family will raise the money to take a civil case against the Sinn Fein president for the murder of her mother. Last month, Ivor Bell, 77, a leader in the Provisional IRA in the 1970s, was charged with aiding and abetting the murder, and there have also been a number of other arrests recently. The case against Mr Bell is based on an interview he allegedly gave to researchers at Boston College in the US. The Boston College tapes are a series of candid, confessional interviews with former loyalist and republican paramilitaries, designed to be an oral history of the Troubles. One of the academics involved at the outset of the project said it had been "a car crash". Lord Bew of Queen's University, Belfast, said: "I think that one of the sad things is that, first of all most importantly, not one whit of improvement has occurred for those who have suffered during the Troubles. "Academically, there is a freeze now around all similar projects and that has to be regretted."

A son of Jean McConville has said Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams warned him several years ago there would be a "backlash" if he released the names of those he believed killed her.

Healthcare workers are visibly struggling, the response to the outbreak has been damned as "lethally inadequate" and the situation is showing signs of getting considerably worse. The outbreak has been running all year, but the latest in a stream of worrying statistics shows 40% of all the deaths have been in just the past three weeks. So what can we expect in the months, and possibly years, to come? Crystal-ball gazing can be a dangerous affair, particularly as this is uncharted territory. Previous outbreaks have been rapidly contained, affecting just dozens of people; this one has already infected more than 3,900. But the first clues are in the current data. Dr Christopher Dye, the director of strategy in the office of the director general at the World Health Organization, has the difficult challenge of predicting what will happen next. He told the BBC: "We're quite worried, I have to say, about the latest data we've just gathered." Up until a couple of weeks ago, the outbreak was raging in Liberia especially close to the epicentre of the outbreak in Lofa County and in the capital Monrovia. However, the two other countries primarily hit by the outbreak, Sierra Leone and Guinea, had been relatively stable. Numbers of new cases were not falling, but they were not soaring either. That is no longer true, with a surge in cases everywhere except some parts of rural Sierra Leone in the districts of Kenema and Kailahun. "In most other areas, cases and deaths appear to be rising. That came as a shock to me," said Dr Dye. The stories of healthcare workers being stretched beyond breaking point are countless. A lack of basic protective gear such as gloves has been widely reported. The charity Medecins Sans Frontieres has an isolation facility with 160 beds in Monrovia. But it says the queues are growing and they need another 800 beds to deal with the number of people who are already sick. This is not a scenario for containing an epidemic, but fuelling one. Dr Dye's tentative forecasts are grim: "At the moment we're seeing about 500 new cases each week. Those numbers appear to be increasing. "I've just projected about five weeks into the future and if current trends persist we would be seeing not hundreds of cases per week, but thousands of cases per week and that is terribly disturbing. "The situation is bad and we have to prepare for it getting worse." The World Health Organization is using an educated guess of 20,000 cases before the end, in order to plan the scale of the response. But the true potential of the outbreak is unknown and the WHO figure has been described to me as optimistic by some scientists. The outbreak started in Gueckedou in Guinea, on the border with Liberia and Sierra Leone. But it has spread significantly with the WHO reporting that "for the first time since the outbreak began" that the majority of cases in the past week were outside of that epicentre with the capital cities becoming major centres of Ebola. Additionally one person took the infection to Nigeria, where it has since spread in a small cluster and there has been an isolated case in Senegal. Prof Simon Hay, from the University of Oxford, will publish his scientific analysis of the changing face of Ebola outbreaks in the next week. He warns that as the total number of cases increases, so does the risk of international spread. He told me: "I think you're going to have more and more of these individual cases seeding into new areas, continued flows into Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, and all the countries in between, so I'm not very optimistic at the moment that we're containing this epidemic." There is always the risk that one of these cases could arrive in Europe or North America. However, richer countries have the facilities to prevent an isolated case becoming an uncontrolled outbreak. The worry is that other African countries with poor resources would not cope and find themselves in a similar situation to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. "Nigeria is the one I look at with great concern. If things started to get out of control in Nigeria I really think that, because of its connectedness and size, that could be quite alarming," said Prof Hay. It is also unclear when this outbreak will be over. Officially the World Health Organization is saying the outbreak can be contained in six to nine months. But that is based on getting the resources to tackle the outbreak, which are currently stretched too thinly to contain Ebola as it stands. There have been nearly 4,000 cases so far, cases are increasing exponentially and there is a potentially vulnerable population in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea in excess of 20 million. 11,315 Deaths - probable, confirmed and suspected (Includes one in the US and six in Mali) 4,809 Liberia 3,955 Sierra Leone 2,536 Guinea 8 Nigeria Prof Neil Ferguson, the director of the UK Medical Research Council's centre for outbreak analysis and modelling at Imperial College London, is providing data analysis for the World Health Organization. He is convinced that the three countries will eventually get on top of the outbreak, but not without help from the rest of the world. "The authorities are completely overwhelmed. All the trends are the epidemic is increasing, it's still growing exponentially, so there's certainly no reason for optimism. "It is hard to make a long-term prognosis, but this is certainly something we'll be dealing with in 2015. "I can well imagine that unless there is a ramp-up of the response on the ground, we'll have flare-ups of cases for several months and possibly years." It is certainly a timeframe that could see an experimental Ebola vaccine, which began safety testing this week, being used on the front line. If the early trials are successful then healthcare workers could be vaccinated in November this year. But there are is also a fear being raised by some virologists that Ebola may never be contained. Prof Jonathan Ball, a virologist at the University of Nottingham, describes the situation as "desperate". His concern is that the virus is being given its first major opportunity to adapt to thrive in people, due to the large number of human-to-human transmissions of the virus during this outbreak of unprecedented scale. Ebola is thought to come from fruit bats; humans are not its preferred host. But like HIV and influenza, Ebola's genetic code is a strand of RNA. Think of RNA as the less stable cousin of DNA, which is where we keep our genetic information. It means Ebola virus has a high rate of mutation and with mutation comes the possibility of adapting. Prof Ball argues: "It is increasing exponentially and the fatality rate seems to be decreasing, but why? "Is it better medical care, earlier intervention or is the virus adapting to humans and becoming less pathogenic? As a virologist that's what I think is happening." There is a relationship between how deadly a virus is and how easily it spreads. Generally speaking if a virus is less likely to kill you, then you are more likely to spread it - although smallpox was a notable exception. Prof Ball said "it really wouldn't surprise me" if Ebola adapted, the death rate fell to around 5% and the outbreak never really ended. "It is like HIV, which has been knocking away at human-to-human transmission for hundreds of years before eventually finding the right combo of beneficial mutations to spread through human populations." It is also easy to focus just on Ebola when the outbreak is having a much wider impact on these countries. The malaria season, which is generally in September and October in West Africa, is now starting. This will present a number of issues. Will there be capacity to treat patients with malaria? Will people infected with malaria seek treatment if the nearest hospital is rammed with suspected Ebola cases? How will healthcare workers cope when malaria and Ebola both present with similar symptoms. And that nervousness about the safety of Ebola-rife hospitals could damage care yet further. Will pregnant women go to hospital to give birth or stay at home where any complications could be more deadly. The collateral damage from Ebola is unlikely to be assessed until after the outbreak. No matter where you look there is not much cause for optimism. The biggest unknown in all of this is when there will be sufficient resources to properly tackle the outbreak. Prof Neil Ferguson concludes: "This summer has there have been many globally important news stories in Ukraine and the Middle East, but what we see unfolding in West Africa is a catastrophe to the population, killing thousands in the region now and we're seeing a breakdown of the fragile healthcare system. "So I think it needs to move up the political agenda rather more rapidly than it has."

This isn't just the worst single Ebola outbreak in history, it has now killed more than all the others combined.

Sam Gould said the proportional representation element of the assembly electoral system would give UKIP "six or seven" seats, if it repeated its general election performance. But he told BBC Wales the party was "definitely" capable of winning more. UKIP got more than 200,000 votes in Wales in May, more than both Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats. It came second in six of the 40 Welsh seats but, under the first past the post system, did not win any. The closest it came was Mr Gould in Caerphilly, who was beaten by Labour's Wayne David by around 10,000 votes. UKIP's campaign in Wales also had several problems, including one of its candidates threatening to sue the party for libel, and its regional organiser stepping down. The party believes the regional list system - whereby 20 of the 60 AMs are elected under a form of proportional representation - gives it a strong chance at the assembly election. Former Conservative and UKIP MP Mark Reckless has been given the job of developing the manifesto and it is planning to appoint spokespeople on each of the main devolved policy areas. Local branches will select the 40 constituency candidates by the autumn, while regional list candidates will be picked by a central committee. Mr Gould said: "The (general election) performance was absolutely fantastic and we are so pleased with this foundation ready for next year's assembly election. "If we were to run the same number of votes across Wales we would get seven AMs under the list system. "So we're very confident of breaking through next year in the assembly election. "I think seven seats would be a success, but I think we're in with a very good chance of achieving more." He added: "Mark Reckless will be coming to Wales to work with a Wales-based policy team to help us turn the ideas we have from our local grassroots Welsh representatives into a reality in our manifesto." There has never been a UKIP assembly member, but the party had a Welsh MEP elected in 2009 and 2014.

UKIP could win more than seven seats in the 2016 assembly election, the party's campaign manager for the poll has said.

In the longer term, the average cost to households could be up to £6,400, according to the Centre for Economic Performance. It says a decline in trade would cost the economy "far more" than would be gained from lower EU contributions. But Vote Leave described the claims as "ridiculous" and lacking "credibility". The Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) is a think tank based at the London School of Economics. In reaching its conclusions, the CEP starts from the standpoint that about half of the UK's trade is with the EU and that as a member of the EU the UK benefits from there being fewer barriers to trade. It says post-Brexit the UK would do less trade with the EU because there would be higher tariffs on goods. But also there would be other non-tariff barriers to trade, such as British exporters to the EU having to prove their goods were made in the UK. Also in the longer term the UK would get less benefit from future market integration within the EU. According to the researchers, in the best case scenario the UK negotiates a deal with the EU similar to Norway's. Norway is a member of the European Economic Area and has a free trade agreement with the EU, so there are no tariffs on trade between the two. However, there are some non-tariff barriers to trade. After deducting the savings that would be made by the UK no longer having to make contributions to the EU budget, the researchers say there would be a fall in UK income of 1.3% - which equates to £850 a year per household. Analysis: Anthony Reuben, BBC Reality Check The problem is that any such predictions involve making big assumptions about what would happen in the event of the UK leaving the EU. The conclusions are extremely sensitive to such assumptions. For example, the losses double if you move from the "optimistic" to "pessimistic" conclusions about what sort of trade deal a post-Brexit UK would reach with the EU. Read more here: Would Brexit cost every household £850? In the worst case - the researchers assume that the UK cannot negotiate a new trade agreement with the EU and all trade between the UK and EU is governed by World Trade Organization rules. This they say would mean bigger increases in trade costs. It would mean a fall in UK income of 2.6% - or £1,700 per household, according to the CEP. "In the optimistic scenario where incomes shrink by only 1.3% we would - like Norway and Switzerland - have to pay into the EU budget and accept EU regulations that we had no say in deciding," says Thomas Sampson, one of the report's authors. "What's more there would still be free migration of labour. "Given the politics, this makes the pessimistic outcome more likely," he adds. Longer term the report says the fall in trade experienced by the UK outside the EU would lower productivity. That would translate into a fall in GDP of between 6.3%, or £4,200 per household, and 9.5% or £6,400 per household. However, the CEP's findings have been strenuously rebutted by Leave campaigners. "These ridiculous claims lack credibility as they come from the same economic sages who said we would be better off scrapping the pound," said the chief executive of Vote Leave, Matthew Elliott. Among the points Vote Leave takes issue with is the report's assumption that trade would be reduced as a result of leaving the EU. This it says is wrong. "It's principal claims are based on leaving the EU 'reducing trade'. Even pro-EU campaigners admit that the UK would have little difficulty striking a free trade agreement with the EU following withdrawal," it goes on. It says the assumptions about non-tariff barriers to trade in the report were "extremely pessimistic". It also attacks the CEP for having received funding form the European Commission. The CEP says less than a 10th of its income comes from that source. Earlier on Friday, the co-founder of stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown told the BBC the "unknown" of leaving the EU could help stimulate Britain". Peter Hargreaves, who backs the UK's withdrawal from the union, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that a fresh start could help Britain innovate. Demand for UK fashion and cars, as well as the attractiveness of the UK as a market for the EU, would ensure good trade deals, he said.

If the UK leaves the European Union, British households could be on average as much as £1,700 a year worse off, a think tank has said.

While music fans around the world mourned the loss of artists like David Bowie, Prince and Leonard Cohen, two important local voices were also silenced. After a career playing alongside figures like Joe Cocker, Paul McCartney and Jimi Hendrix, legendary guitarist Henry McCullough died in June. Meanwhile, Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits and Van Morrison were among those to pay tribute to Belfast singer-songwriter Bap Kennedy, who succumbed to cancer aged only 54 in November. Artist Basil Blackshaw also passed away this year and, in December, poet John Montague died in his adopted home of France. Both had reputations in their respective arts which spread far beyond Northern Ireland. It was also announced this year that a permanent memorial to another local legend, Rory Gallagher, was planned. A statue of the great guitarist is to be put up in 2017 outside the Ulster Hall, where Gallagher played regularly throughout the Troubles in Northern Ireland. There were also a number of notable musical birthdays in 2016. BBC Radio Ulster's Across the Line, which has always championed local music, celebrated its 30th, while The Undertones marked 40 years together with a special BBC gig. Despite recent doubts over its future, the Ulster Orchestra celebrated its half century with a special day of 50 concerts across Belfast in September. After putting it on a more stable financial footing, Sir George Bain stepped down as chair late in the year, replaced by Stephen Peover. Money worries elsewhere in the arts did not disappear, however. With the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL) abolished, the arts became the responsibility of the Department for Communities (DfC) under a new minister, the DUP's Paul Givan. The new department subsequently cut their grant to the Arts Council of Northern Ireland by £500,000 in July. As the Arts Council is the main funding body for many arts organisations, this led to more concerns over sustainability for some. One major artist also announced she would be leaving Northern Ireland early in 2017. Former Belfast poet laureate Sinead Morrissey announced she was departing the city for a new post at Newcastle University. She is one of Britain's leading poets having won the world-renowned TS Eliot prize in 2014 for her collection, Parallax, following in the footsteps of both Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon. There were, however, some notable successes on the big and small screen for Northern Ireland linked productions. In September, Game of Thrones broke the record for the highest number of Emmy Awards won by any fictional series with a total of 38. However, in August, US broadcaster HBO confirmed that the series would end after its eighth season in 2018. As it is mainly filmed in Northern Ireland it will leave a big gap, although NI Screen also said it would leave a strong legacy of local expertise in the industry. Elsewhere, Belfast production company Sixteen South won a children's Bafta, while World War Two drama, My Mother and Other Strangers, which was set and shot locally, was broadcast on a prime Sunday night slot on BBC 1. At the prestigious Venice film festival in September the red carpet came out for the global premiere of The Journey, written by Bangor's Colin Bateman. The drama was a fictional account of the relationship between Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness and the late first minister Ian Paisley, starring Colm Meaney and Timothy Spall. An artistic portrayal of an even more notable figure was unveiled in November. County Down artist Colin Davidson was present as his portrait of the Queen was unveiled by the monarch in London. Mr Davidson said that he felt the work was a "symbol" of the Queen's role in advancing a closer relationship between Britain and Ireland. One art form which has taken Irish culture to the world put on a show at Belfast's Waterfront Hall in November. Around 1,600 competitors from all over the globe took part in the week-long 2016 All- Ireland Irish Dance Championships, bringing a dash of colour to what had been, at times, a dark year.

In the arts, 2016 has been a year of farewells, in Northern Ireland as across the globe.

Dinesh and Tarakeshwari Rathod said last year that they had successfully reached the 8,850m (29,035ft) summit. But police in Maharashtra state on Monday confirmed the couple had "morphed photographs" to show a successful ascent on 23 May. The inquiry was launched after the pair's claims were queried by climbers. Additional Commissioner Sahebrao Patil told the PTI news agency that the couple "shared misleading information" and "brought disrepute to the Maharashtra Police department". It's not clear if the couple will also face charges. Nepalese authorities also imposed a 10-year mountaineering ban last year on the couple after concluding that their claim was fake. The country's tourism department had initially certified their ascent but rescinded that decision after conducting an investigation. Mr and Mrs Rathod initially told reporters that their pictures were real. But a climber based in the southern Indian city of Bangalore, Satyarup Sidhantha, later told the media that the photographs presented by the Rathods as "proof" of their climb actually belonged to him. Suspicions were further aroused because of the time lag between the day the Rathods claimed to have reached the summit and their news conference announcing their achievement. It was alleged that the couple could not possibly have reached the summit so soon after they were seen to have arrived at the base camp, and that the photos appeared to show them in two different sets of clothes and boots while on the climb. Many of those who have succeeded in scaling the 8,848m (29,029ft) mountain have subsequently gone on to have lucrative careers as motivational speakers and authors. Mountaineering is a major source of income for impoverished Nepal. More than 450 people, including more than 250 foreigners, climbed Everest during the spring season last year. It followed two consecutive years of poor weather - made worse by the Nepal earthquake of 2015 - which resulted in almost all Everest attempts being abandoned. Get news from the BBC in your inbox, each weekday morning

Two police officers have been sacked after an inquiry found their claim to be the first Indian couple to climb Everest was fake.

Haigh, who had been set to become chief executive following Cellino's takeover, had been on the board since GFH took over at Elland Road in December 2012. He attempted to take charge of the club through his Sport Capital consortium but the deal collapsed in January. As is well known by those in or close to the club, my unstinting support of Leeds United throughout my time at the club has extended to loaning the club money to ensure that tax, players and staff were paid and to underpin its continuing viability - loans which to this day remain in the club Leeds are currently 16th in the table after five straight defeats. Haigh said in a statement: "Owing to various statements made by and on behalf of the new majority owners of Leeds United FC, I am left with no alternative than to resign as managing director of the club. "This is a matter of particular regret to me since I was the person who first introduced Eleonora Sport (Cellino's company) to the club's owners. I also gave them my full and constant support in the Football League's lengthy approval process. "I am not yet, due to confidentiality obligations, in a position fully to respond to various statements which have been made about me over recent months. As soon as I am I will address the various issues - obviously a great deal has happened these past two years. "As is well known by those in or close to the club, my unstinting support of Leeds United throughout my time at the club has extended to loaning the club money to ensure that tax, players and staff were paid and to underpin its continuing viability - loans which to this day remain in the club." His departure comes on the day that West Yorkshire Police confirmed they were "investigating allegations of funds being misappropriated for the purchase of technical equipment". There is no suggestion that the two events are linked. Head of crime for Leeds, Det Supt Pat Twiggs said the investigation, which is believed to involve payment for unauthorised hidden cameras, had started after a report was made by the Championship club on Wednesday. He added: "Enquiries are at an early stage and we are not in a position to give any further information about the nature of the allegation."

Leeds United managing director David Haigh has resigned from the Championship club's board the day after Massimo Cellino completed his takeover.

It means the comic will, in total, try to run more than 700 miles in temperatures of up to 30 C. The significance of the number 27 comes from the number of years Nelson Mandela spent in prison. The anti-apartheid campaigner was President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999 before his death in 2013 aged 95. Izzard said he was "delighted" to be taking on the challenge but added: "Of course, 27 marathons in 27 days is nothing compared to what Nelson Mandela did by serving 27 years in prison. "He was a great soul and leaves a fantastic legacy for the world." During his marathons, Izzard will explore the histories of South Africa and Nelson Mandela, as well as visiting communities, organisations and families that have all been helped by the work of Comic Relief and Sport Relief. His journey is due to finish on 20 March when he arrives an the Union Buildings in Pretoria where Nelson Mandela gave his inaugural speech as the first democratically elected President of South Africa. Izzard, 54, previously attempted a similar feat in South Africa in 2012, but had to pull out for health reasons. He also completed 43 marathons in 51 days across the UK for Sport Relief in 2009, raising over £1.8m in the process. Speaking about his past attempts, Izzard said: "I tried to do this four years ago and failed. This time I will succeed. "But if I fail, I will come back again and again and again until I do succeed. Because that's what Nelson Mandela would have done." The marathons will be covered on BBC Three, which is about to move from television to online. Sport Relief raises money for disadvantaged people in some of the world's poorest communities. It takes place every two years, alternating with Red Nose Day.

Eddie Izzard will attempt to run 27 marathons in 27 days through South Africa for Sport Relief, the BBC has announced.

But potentially that is just the tip of the iceberg. Over the past decade or so pharmacists have been given more and more responsibilities in the NHS, just as nurses have. It means many now offer blood pressure checks, and cholesterol and blood glucose level tests alongside pregnancy testing and sexually transmitted infection services. Colds and flu can often be dealt with there, without bothering a GP at all, while some even provide stop smoking services and prescribe drugs and treatments. But despite their expanding remit, much of the public is oblivious. Less than a third of people asked in a recent YouGov poll of over 2,000 people were aware of what pharmacists could offer. So now Pharmacy Voice, which represents the industry, is launching a drive to change perceptions. It is running a two-year promotional campaign, Dispensing Health, to promote what the UK's 13,000 community pharmacies can do. "Pharmacy is the third largest health profession (in the health sector) after medicine and nursing," says Pharmacy Voice chief executive Prof Robert Darracott. "Yet people still don't really know who we are and what we can do." He says the aim of the campaign is to "challenge the traditional view of pharmacies as simply dispensers of medicine" so that they are seen as a place where illness can be treated and good health promoted. The push has received the backing of GPs with both the Royal College of GPs and NHS Alliance, which represents community services, putting their names to the campaign. Making sure the potential of pharmacies is realised could also have important implications for the rest of the health service too. A review by NHS England into the A&E system, which was published in November, said pharmacies were an "under-used" resource that if tapped into could take the pressure off GPs who in turn would then have time to take on some of the workload of hospitals. Dr Mike Dixon, of the NHS Alliance, says: "Community pharmacy is perfectly positioned to take the strain from GPs and A&E departments that are bursting at the seams." It is thought as many as one in seven GP appointments could be dealt with by pharmacies - about 40m a year. If that was to happen it could have a profound effect on the entire NHS.

To many people, their local pharmacy is the place where they pick up their medicines and perhaps their toiletries.

Team Brewster beat the Olympic silver medallists skipped by David Murdoch 7-2 9-5 at Perth's Dewars Centre on Sunday to clinch the men's spot. Playing third for Brewster is Glen Muirhead, brother of winning skip Eve. Her rink claimed the women's place with three wins in a best-of-five tournament decider against Hannah Fleming's team. "I thought it would go to three finals," said Brewster, who will be competing in his first European Championships at the event from 19-26 November. "Dave's team were throwing the stones really well but we got off to a great start and a three in the third end gave us the lead and we managed to keep it. "It hasn't really sunk in yet and it will be great to compete in a home event. We have trained really hard, the ice has been good this week and the guys have played great. Now we need to do more of the same at Braehead." For Eve Muirhead, there is the excitement of playing in a European Championships in her home country. "I think that makes a massive difference," she said. "To get the chance to represent your country in your country is something quite special. "Any team that's there has earned the right to be there so it will be tough as usual and I guess you've got to go there on form. Our new coach Glenn Howard's going to be there with us and he's brought a lot to this team so far." Meanwhile, Glen Muirhead's long-term girlfriend Anna Sloan, who plays third for Team Muirhead, makes her return from injury this week. Glen said: "It's going to be exciting for us both. We're going to be motivated to push each other on and likewise with my sister. "It's just that extra little couple of per cent and, home soil at Braehead, so there's even more to look forward to. I'm excited and it should be fun."

Scotland will be represented at next month's European Curling Championships in Braehead by rinks led by Tom Brewster and Eve Muirhead.

Executive producer Al Jean said in a statement to the New York Times that Shearer had turned down a new pay deal. The show "will go on" and the actor's characters will be recast, Jean added. Shearer took to Twitter to say the decision "wasn't about money" and that signing up to a new series would have stopped him from doing other work. The 71-year-old provided the voice for addled school principal Seymour Skinner as well as rapacious millionaire Montgomery Burns and Ned Flanders, Homer Simpson's chipper neighbour. Shearer signalled his exit on Twitter by claiming that a lawyer for executive producer James L Brooks said: "Show will go on, Harry will not be part of it, wish him the best." In a follow-up tweet, Shearer added: "This because I wanted what we've always had: The freedom to do other work. Of course, I wish him the very best." In response, Al Jean wrote: "Harry Shearer was offered the same deal the rest of the cast accepted, and passed. "The show will go on and we wish him well. Maggie took it hard. "We do not plan to kill off characters like Burns and Flanders but will recast with the finest voiceover talent available." Last week, the Fox network confirmed it had commissioned two more series of the long-running animated sitcom. According to reports at the time, Shearer had yet to sign a new contract. On Thursday, the actor stressed that he had no plans to retire, adding: "On to new stuff..." His other roles have included bass player Derek Smalls in rock "mockumentary" This is Spinal Tap. The Simpsons has been on air since 1989, and the new series will take the total number of episodes to 625.

Harry Shearer, who voices Ned Flanders and Mr Burns in The Simpsons, is to leave the show after more than 25 years following a dispute with producers.

On Wednesday, shares of Chinese solar power manufacturer Hanergy Thin Film were suspended after falling 47%, wiping out $18.6bn (£11.9bn) from its market capitalisation. That was followed by shares of Goldin Financial, which fell 55% on Thursday. Both firms had seen the price of their shares surge over the past year. Shares of Goldin Financial, which is 70%-owned by Hong Kong billionaire Pan Sutong, have jumped by more than 400% between September 2014 and March this year, according to Reuters. The firm had said that it was not aware of the reason behind the big jump in its share price. About half of Goldin's value - $16.12bn - was erased on Thursday as shares fell. Meanwhile, Hanergy shares had risen five-fold since September before the sell-off began. The firm, controlled by Chinese billionaire Li Hejun, had issued a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Wednesday saying its shares had been halted from trade "pending the release of an announcement containing inside information". Li has been considered one of China's richest men on the back of his stake in Hanergy. Nicholas Teo, market analyst at trading firm CMC markets said he had noticed the dramatic drop in Hanergy's shares right away because it had everyone "scratching their heads". "The company was very quick to call a halt to the trading, but without any news, there is plenty of speculation and potentially room for further reaction to the downside if the trading suspension is lifted," he said. "Even after the drop though, Hanergy's shares are basically twice as expensive as some of the firms in that sector." David Kuo, chief executive of The Motley Fool Singapore backed the view that Hanergy shares were overvalued. "Hanergy is involved in the much-hyped solar-panel industry. Investors are paying $50 for every dollar of profit the company makes," he said. "When expectation overtakes reality, reality eventually wins. The market is experiencing a dose of reality." There has been speculation as to the reason why the Chinese company halted trading, with Reuters citing an unnamed source as saying the firm is under investigation by Hong Kong regulators. Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has declined to make a comment. Local reports also said that Li, chairman of the firm, did not attend the firm's annual general meeting in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

Shares of two Hong Kong-listed companies have plunged by about 50% in the past two days, surprising market watchers across the region.

The accident happened shortly before 22:00 GMT on the New Lodge Road on Tuesday. The man's condition was initially described as serious, but police have said he is now critical but stable in the Royal Victoria Hospital. The New Lodge Road was closed for a time following the incident but has since re-opened. Police have said they are following a number of lines of inquiry. Det Insp Jenna Fitzpatrick said: "Information suggests that the car had been seen being driven dangerously in the area in the time leading up to the collision. "The car was abandoned a short distance away from the scene at Donore Court." Another car was struck by the green Ford Focus as it left the scene.

A man in his 30s who was hit by a car in north Belfast is in a critical condition in hospital.

New figures show the total number of teachers across Scotland has risen, but 12 council areas saw numbers fall. Mr Swinney said the stats were "good news" in light of recruitment "challenges" in some areas. Opposition parties said numbers were still down over the long term. And they said parents "have a right to be very angry" about the attainment gap between pupils from better and worse-off backgrounds. The latest figures showed teacher numbers were up for the first time in several years, with 51,000 employed in state schools in 2016. But in 12 local authorities the numbers fell, with the largest percentage drop in Moray, which has highlighted recruitment problems in the past. The figures were among a fresh batch of important statistics being published on the state of the Scottish education system. The ratio of pupils to teachers was maintained across Scotland but the average size of a class crept up slightly to 23.5 students. Nationally, the number of teachers fell between 2010 and 2014 then stabilised. The number of teachers fell in 12 council areas, including in Highland and Dumfries and Galloway, although in both these regions the ratio of pupils to teachers was maintained at the same level. In 12 council areas the ratio of pupils to teachers got worse in 2016, including in Edinburgh and Fife where teacher numbers had risen. These were: The government expects the ratio of pupils to teachers to be maintained, although BBC Scotland understands the councils will not face any financial sanctions. Many councils have told BBC Scotland that they are finding it hard to fill some vacancies. Recently the Scottish government unveiled a number of initiatives to try to encourage more people into teaching, and some local authorities have also launched their own initiatives. The latest statistics also showed: Separate figures, published on Tuesday, looked at the number of children considered by teachers to be performing at the required level for their age in Curriculum for Excellence. The data showed that between 65% and 85% of pupils in primary schools achieved the relevant level in aspects of literacy and numeracy. However, the proportion of pupils achieving the relevant level for their stage decreased throughout the primary stages. Updating MSPs on the figures, Mr Swinney said: "I very much welcome the rise in teacher numbers compared to last year, the fact that class sizes are broadly stable and that the pupil-teacher ratio has been maintained. "This is all good news, particularly when you consider the teacher recruitment challenges being faced in some areas. "The data shows that significant improvements are required in some local authorities, and real challenges exist in delivering the progress in literacy and numeracy we seek. "There is much to be proud of in Scottish education; we need to remain focused on and committed to Curriculum for Excellence and we need to continue to implement the reforms we are putting in place." Scotland's largest teaching union, the EIS, welcomed the rise in teacher numbers but said some "significant challenges" continued to face schools. General secretary Larry Flanagan said: "The number of teachers employed across Scotland has held steady, and actually shows a small increase overall, indicating the local authorities have adhered to a commitment brokered between the EIS and local and national government to maintain teacher numbers over the year. "This is very welcome, and is helping to improve employment prospects for qualified teachers and ensure that young people have consistent levels of provision in schools across Scotland. "The EIS would certainly expect the Scottish government to continue its commitment to maintaining teacher numbers, and we hope to hear confirmation soon from the finance minister in his forthcoming financial statement." He added: "Given the welcome Scottish government commitment to tackling the attainment gap, the trend of rising class sizes is an issue that must be tackled through greater investment in a greater number of qualified teachers." The Scottish Conservatives said teacher numbers were still thousands below the levels they were at in 2007. The party's education spokeswoman Liz Smith said: "With teacher numbers having plummeted from the levels they were at a decade ago, it once again calls into question whether the CfE can be delivered properly. "There are a number of legitimate concerns about the curriculum, and these statistics are further evidence that we need to have proper independent scrutiny of how it is being implemented." Ms Smith also told Mr Swinney that parents "have a right to be very angry" about the gulf in achievement between pupils from differing financial circumstances. The Scottish Greens' education spokesman Ross Greer questioned the government's decision to publish statistics on how well schools pupils were doing in certain areas of the Curriculum for Excellence. He said: "Today's figures demonstrate the utterly bizarre education priorities the Scottish government has. We see class sizes continue to creep up, making them the highest they've been since the SNP formed the government and nine years after they promised to reduce them to 18. "More teachers and smaller classes are vital if we're to improve the quality of education." Meanwhile, Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale accused the SNP of "slashing" spending on Scotland's school pupils by more than 8%. She highlighted analysis by the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) which she said showed that real-terms spend on education fell from £6,692-per-pupil in 2010/11 to £6,152 in 2014-15. She said: "Nicola Sturgeon promised to make education her top priority, but Scotland has plunged down the international league tables on her watch. "Year-on-year cuts to school budgets, teacher numbers and support staff are damaging the life chances of Scotland's children." Scottish Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Tavish Scott MSP said: "Today's figures show that after a decade in power, the SNP has failed to deliver on its commitment of smaller class sizes for our youngest pupils." The latest figures a week after it emerged that Scotland's schools had recorded their worst-ever performance in an international survey of pupils. The country's scores for maths, reading and science all declined in the latest set of Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) figures. It was the first time since the tests began in 2000 that Scotland's performance in all three subject areas was classed as "average", with none "above average", among the 72 countries that took part. The Curriculum for Excellence has been introduced in Scottish schools in recent years, with the country's qualifications system also overhauled. However, teaching unions have complained about "excessive and unsustainable" workloads as a result of some of the changes.

Education Secretary John Swinney has welcomed an overall increase in teacher numbers in Scotland - although he said "significant improvements" were needed in some areas.

The two men in their 40s went missing on Tuesday as they climbed the 4,248-metre (13,937ft) Mont Blanc du Tacul. The weather is thought to have worsened suddenly. Reports say they had taken the difficult "Devil's Ridge" route. Mont Blanc, with 11 peaks above 4,000m, is Western Europe's highest range, and a challenging area for climbers.

Two German climbers froze to death while attempting one of the peaks of Mont Blanc in the French Alps and rescuers have recovered their bodies.

The prime minister said Labour had a "brass neck" to claim they were on the side of ordinary working families. Under the £350m Conservative plans, the amount of state-subsidised childcare for three and four year-olds would be doubled to 30 hours a week. Labour said it was "another unfunded announcement", accusing the Conservatives of "desperation". The Liberal Democrats said the plans "ignore working families with the youngest children". BBC political correspondent Carole Walker said Mr Cameron was attempting to switch the focus of the campaign to one of his party's key announcement after several days dominated by warnings about the SNP and a future Labour government. The party is likely to face questions about how it would ensure sufficient childcare places are available, she added. Currently, all three and four-year olds in England are entitled to 570 hours of free early education or childcare a year, which works out as 15 hours each week for 38 weeks of the year. The Conservatives said the 30-hour offer from 2017, announced a week ago, would result in more than 600,000 extra 15-hour free childcare places every year. They said the proposal would be funded by reducing tax relief on pension contributions. Labour has pledged 25 hours of free childcare a week and the Liberal Democrats 20 hours, although both parties also plan to extend the offer to younger children. Mr Cameron said his government inherited a "shocking" situation, "where couples were spending as much on childcare as one of them took home in earnings". He added that "for many second earners, work didn't pay because the cost of childcare was so high". A Conservative government would expand on the changes made in the last Parliament, Mr Cameron said. "If you're a working parent with one child you can rest assured that by the time they're three they'll be able to go to nursery for 30 hours a week completely free," Mr Cameron said. "And we have legislated also for tax free childcare for anything outside that - so if you spend ten thousand pounds on childcare you'll get two thousand pounds back for each child." But Labour's shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt said: "Hard-working families will not be fooled by the £600m gap in funding for this policy, as announced last week." He said Labour had a "better plan" including a "guarantee of access" to childcare between 08:00 and 18:00 for primary age children. And Liberal Democrat equalities minister Jo Swinson said: "Tory plans for childcare ignore working families with the youngest children, which could leave some parents locked out of the labour market for years on end." She said her party would extend early-years education to all two-year-olds and ensure free childcare support kicked in as soon as paid parental leave ended for working mums and dads. "This will help with the cost of childcare and ensure working parents have a genuine choice about when to return to work," she added. The UK Independence Party says it will continue to fund the current free 15-hour a week childcare scheme and in-coming tax-free childcare scheme - although they would de-regulate childcare provision "to address the shortage places and cut the cost to both parents and the state". * Subscribe to the BBC Election 2015 newsletter to get a round-up of the day's campaign news sent to your inbox every weekday afternoon.

David Cameron says he will create 600,000 extra free childcare places if he is returned to power next month.

In 2015, voter turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds was estimated to be 43%, compared with a 66.1% turnout overall. This year, YouGov puts the youth turnout at 58%. Polling traditionally shows that a majority of young people vote Labour. This year, the proportion has jumped to 63% for 18-29-year-olds, according to YouGov. So how did this change happen? Sam Jeffers, co-founder of Who Targets Me, which monitored the use of social media adverts by the political parties during the general election, said it seemed clear that Labour defeated the Conservatives in the social media battle. Labour's adverts had consistently been shared more widely by social media users, he said. Part of this appears to be down to the difference in tone of the adverts. While the Conservatives had almost entirely focused their adverts on the strength of Prime Minister Theresa May and the weakness of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Labour's social media adverts had been more positive, seeking to emphasise that the party was building a social movement, he said. And this had been combined with the repeated use of adverts with practical messages designed to increase youth voter turnout by giving instructions on how to register to vote and where to find local polling stations. Adverts also appeared to have been released on specific days on the basis that their message was likely to cut through for only a limited amount of time, Mr Jeffers said. For example, Labour had invested heavily on adverts attacking the Tories' so-called "dementia tax" on social care costs, days before the 8 June election. The aim of this appeared to be to suppress the older, potentially Conservative, vote or get them to switch to Labour at the last minute, Mr Jeffers said. Labour also focused its attention on more of the UK, targeting 464 constituencies in the final two days of the election campaign. The Tories targeted 205. Was it Facebook wot swung it? While the Labour Party paid for targeted adverts on social media, Momentum - the group that was set up to support Mr Corbyn's leadership bid and now campaigns for Labour - had a different social media strategy. Rather than pay for advertising, it instead sought to create content it hoped social media users would share voluntarily. The group created videos - many of them parodies - it hoped would become viral. These included Daddy, why do you hate me? - a mock political broadcast telling people to vote for Theresa May "because your children deserve worse" - which Momentum says has been viewed more than 7.6 million times across social media platforms. Its Facebook and Twitter pages feature a mixture of content, from posts mocking Theresa May's record to videos of Mr Corbyn hugging some of his supporters. Joe Todd, from Momentum, said the group had felt its strategy was working when it had realised many of the people sharing its content were not typical supporters of Mr Corbyn. Increasingly, users liking its Facebook page had been people who also liked the pages of TV programmes not known for their political audiences, such as Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway and Match of the Day, he said. "We were breaking out of the leftie bubble," Mr Todd said. Using message services to reach the young - and in some cases mobilising them into an army of potential canvassers - had been important in reaching the youth vote, Mr Todd said. Momentum says it reached some 400,000 people through the messaging platform WhatsApp, which data shows is used most by 18-to 29-year-olds, in the UK. The group also set up mynearestmarginal.com - a website that enables activists to pool together, and often lift share, to canvass in marginal seats. Momentum says the website was used by about 100,000 people - more than four times as many as its 24,000 membership. This meant young people with no experience of canvassing could team up with those with previous election experience for targeted canvassing. "If you have a young person telling another young person, 'You should get out and vote because this election is important', it's more convincing," Mr Todd said. There was also an unashamed pitch for the youth vote at the heart of Labour's manifesto For the Many, Not the Few - and that was the eye-catching promise of scrapping tuition fees for university students and the pledge to reintroduce their maintenance grants. Further policies pitched with the young in mind included the ending of zero-hour contracts and unpaid internships, a rise in the minimum wage, and a pledge to build more than one million homes. Of course, Labour wasn't the only party that targeted young people and it's hard to quantify the effect of the manifesto in getting the young out to vote, but Mr Todd felt it was among the most significant factors. "It conjured up a sense of hope," he said. The Labour campaign also featured large rallies that accompanied Jeremy Corbyn's speeches around the country. Mr Corbyn had been a long-standing supporter of the protest movement, and the veteran anti-war campaigner was well placed to appeal to a growing number of young people who had become engaged in politics through these movements, according to Sam Fairbairn, national secretary of the People's Assembly protest group. Although the People's Assembly does not endorse individual parties or candidates, Mr Fairbairn said the group - and its numerous local affiliates and sister organisations - had encouraged members to join Mr Corbyn's campaign rallies. "It's no accident Jeremy has been part of these movements since he's been in politics. This is how many young people have got into politics in the last 10 years," Mr Fairbairn said. "What we saw was the result of the work all these movements have done." A string of endorsements from anti-establishment celebrities and musicians, including from the world of grime - a genre of music that blends garage and jungle and has a Jamaican influence - also, arguably, further bolstered Mr Corbyn's youth credentials. Mr Corbyn also took part in interviews with outlets - such as rock magazines NME and Kerrang, and football YouTube channel Copa90 - outside of the political mainstream that were more likely to reach younger audiences. Becka Hudson, from the #Grime4Corbyn campaign, told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme Mr Corbyn had "offered young people a programme they can believe in and a better future". The question is what happens next with that youth support. Is there the danger the young will be discouraged by the election result and be less likely to turn out at the next election, whenever that may be? Mr Todd thinks the opposite is the case. "For most people this project was something they believed in, but it seemed like it might not be possible. Now the prospect of victory is really realistic," he said.

A boosted youth vote is believed to have contributed to Labour's shock election result, but what made young people turn out to vote?

For Volkswagen, the reaction to the revelations that it deliberately tried to game tests supposed to reduce pollution will be as vital in determining the long term damage to the company as the fact of the original offence. Today's review of how Thomas Cook dealt with the deaths of Bobbi and Christi Shepherd in 2006 shows how the tragedy was then compounded by the company's reaction - a company, it should be noted, which says it tries to "consistently meet and exceed the expectations of its customers". Take one small example - Thomas Cook's response to a request from the family for legal support during the inquest. In 2014, the company turned down the request, only reversing their position after Peter Fankhauser, Thomas Cook's chief executive, met Sharon Wood and Neil Shepherd, Bobbi and Christi's parents, this year. "The fact that this tragic situation spanned almost 9 years is testimony to how much the legal rather than human considerations dominated the landscape," Justin King writes in his report. Earlier attempts by the family to meet previous chief executives were rebuffed or ignored, Mr King reveals. He makes it clear that at the time of the tragedy the company was focused on "financial, contracting, the airlines and destination" and has only recently been "moving to create a real customer focus". The report says that the "destination management" process - which encompasses the famous "holiday rep" that is often the first point of call for holidaymakers - saw its role as the "maximisation of revenue for the minimum of cost". That can lead to tensions and a "misalignment of goals", with cost cutting leading to less time spent with holidaymakers and failing online systems. In one instance, Mr King reveals, IT systems are so poor, staff in holiday destinations cannot access the Thomas Cook website. In such an environment health and safety - often the general butt of jokes about officialdom gone mad - can appear a Cinderella service, under-resourced and under-powered. Indeed Mr King says that Thomas Cook's Health and Safety Management System, despite being an "excellent framework", suffered from "a number of significant shortcomings in [its] implementation and operation". How many businesses could confidently say that was not the same in their company? Even now, Mr King believes that, the new contract Thomas Cook has signed for the provision of health and safety auditing within the company is "at the lower end of the scale, reflecting budgetary constraints". "Adequate" is the best Mr King can say of the present approach, and information on customer complaints - often an early warning of problems - is "not collected with sufficient robustness", he says. Different parts of the business operate in silos, and the sharing of information is not what it should be. Every company chief executive should read Mr King's report. And reflect on now many of the problems he has identified are also true of the businesses they run.

In an era when there is considerable suspicion about the motivation of businesses, the ability of a company to react to a crisis in a way that reveals it to be run by human beings rather than faceless chief executives is of paramount importance.

In July, Michael Gove raised the possibility of early release for those who gained skills and qualifications. Led by head teacher Dame Sally Coates, the inquiry will report early in 2016. It will also consider the greater use of technology and the "direct engagement" of employers in shaping prisoners' learning. Prison Reform Trust director Juliet Lyon said: "Providing people with the knowledge and skills to help them lead a law-abiding life on release should be a central aim of a modern and effective penal system." Mr Gove said: "We have more than 80,000 adults in our custody. "One of the most important things we can do once they are inside the prison walls is to make sure that they get the literacy and numeracy skills they need to make them employable and positive contributors to society once released. "For those serving longer sentences, education and training is a key part of their rehabilitation. "We must have the right incentives for prisoners to learn and for prison staff to make sure that education is properly prioritised. "I want to see prisoners motivated to engage in their own learning, and governors with the right tools to be more demanding and creative about the education provided in the prisons they run. "I have seen some excellent examples of innovation and visionary organisations providing prisoners with education opportunities and qualifications they actually need to help secure a job on release. But I want to see more." In a speech in July to the Prisoner Learning Alliance, Mr Gove called for an end to the "idleness and futility" of prison life. He said the inability of prisoners to read properly or master basic mathematics made them prime candidates for reoffending. A system of "earned release" would be a major change from the current policy where most prisoners are automatically released on licence half way through their sentences. In July, Mr Gove said he recognised "technical and complex policy questions" about how such a change could be implemented.

The justice secretary has ordered a review to consider the "incentivisation of prisoners to participate in, attend and achieve at education".

The fire, which is being treated as deliberate, was first reported at about 11:00 BST on Sunday. Eight fire appliances and 45 fire fighters are at the scene, including crew members from the Irish Fire Service. The blaze has spread across a 5 kilometre area, crossing the border. It is the latest of 435 reported wildfires since the beginning of May. Group Commander Brian Stanfield said: "We believe this fire has been started deliberately and we believe there are still people in the area qho are starting fires. "We'd like to appeal to members of the public. This is reckless behaviour, this is not just endangering the countryside, but it is putting people's lives and property at risk."

The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) is attending a gorse fire in Alderwood Road near Clogher and Fivemiletown in County Tyrone.

The ship took shelter near Mounts Bay after an initial rescue at 22:00 BST on Sunday failed due to poor weather conditions, the coastguard said. The men were airlifted to Royal Cornwall Hospital. The Panamanian registered Bochem Oslo vessel had the highly corrosive acid on board for maintenance reasons. No cargo was on board. Commander Scott Armstrong, who was flying a helicopter from RNAS Culdrose, said the swell 20 miles (32 km) off St Ives was a problem. "We estimated there was about a 40ft movement on the ship, it was just too much, it was moving around too quickly," he said. It is understood the tanker was en-route to Germany to pick up cargo.

Three men have suffered burns from nitric acid while on board a ship off Cornwall.

The trip includes a birthday barbeque in Western Australia for the heir to the British throne, who is turning 67. The pair will also meet new Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull, once the public face of the country's republican movement. Their 12-day tour will take in 12 different towns and cities across Australia and New Zealand. Charles and Camilla arrive in the New Zealand capital Wellington on 4 November. They will then travel around Australia between 10 and 15 November, visiting Adelaide and Tanunda, Canberra, Sydney, Albany and Perth. It will be the 15th time the Prince of Wales has visited Australia. His son Prince William and his wife Kate proved a hit with Australians when they visited last year to show off their baby son.

Prince Charles and his wife Camilla are to visit Australia and New Zealand in November, his office says.

Hibs have started the process of appointing a new boss after thanking Stubbs for doing "a magnificent job" over his two-year spell. Stubbs, 44, decided to return to England shortly after ending Hibs' 114-year wait to win the Scottish Cup. "They fitted in with my ambition," Stubbs said of Rotherham. The Englishman has signed a three-year deal with the Millers, who reached a settlement with Hibs over compensation for Stubbs and his assistant, John Doolan. "Alan and his staff have done a magnificent job, with the pinnacle obviously being that historic Scottish Cup win for which every Hibernian supporter is thankful," said Hibs chief executive Leeann Dempster. "We wish them every success in the future "The task now for Hibernian is to find a head coach who will lead us back into Scotland's top flight by winning the Championship this season. "We expect high calibre candidates, and while we understand there will be a lot of speculation, as ever this club will go about its business quietly and professionally and speak when there is something meaningful to say." Speaking for the first time since his appointment at New York Stadium, Stubbs admitted it was a "really difficult decision" to leave Hibs, but that moving to the Championship in England was "the next chapter" for his career. Rotherham finished one place outside the relegation zone last season but Stubbs believes he can guide the team up the table to match his own ambitions and those of chairman Tony Stewart. "I was impressed by what the chairman had to say, what his vision is for the club and the ambition," he explained. "The club's had two seasons where they've stabilised in the Championship and we're looking to take the club forward. We want to be moving up the table and ultimately we want to be a club that is around the play-offs. That has to be the aim. Media playback is not supported on this device "The plan has always been to be the best I can. I wanted to manage at the very top level. I got a great opportunity at Hibernian, they've been fantastic with me, I really enjoyed my two years there. "I'm glad I've been able to leave on the back of a successful end to the season but now it's a new chapter and one that's very exciting for me." Stewart insisted that, despite lengthy talks with Hibs over compensation - and Stubbs and Doolan ultimately resigning from their posts - relations between the two clubs were fine. And he confirmed that compensation will be paid to the Easter Road club. "Alan had another year on his contract, so we did the protocol with Hibs," Stewart said. "My CEO had discussions with them to talk to Alan and that led to the appointment. We agreed a settlement with Hibs and we move forward now freely. "We've followed Alan's career. He was on the radar months ago, the timing was right and we took the opportunity. I like the drive, the leadership. "Football is about moving around. Hibs have been fantastic, Alan's told me how good they've been up there and it's sad they've lost a manager and Rotherham gained him. We look forward now to getting ready for next season."

Alan Stubbs says leaving Hibernian for Rotherham United was a "calculated risk" but "the right decision at the right time".

He played a key role in advancing the Northern Ireland peace process, including the 1994 IRA ceasefire. The Fianna Fáil politician, who was born in Rooskey in County Roscommon, led the party in two coalition governments. He served as taoiseach (prime minister) for just under three years from February 1992 to December 1994. On a biography on its website, Fianna Fáil said of Mr Reynolds: "Without a doubt his greatest achievement was in Northern Ireland and Anglo-Irish relations, signing the Downing Street Declaration in 1993. "It was Reynolds' determination that gave impetus to the peace process and the establishment of an IRA ceasefire in 1994, followed shortly afterwards by a loyalist ceasefire. "Albert Reynolds asked the defining question 'who is afraid of peace?' "His determination brought about what had seemed impossible," the party added. Former prime minister Sir John Major said Mr Reynolds' willingness to bring different sides together allowed them to "put aside disagreements" and retain a good relationship "to work for a common goal". "I have to tell you, in my experience in politics that this isn't a virtue that every politician has, but Albert Reynolds did," he said. Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams paid tribute to Mr Reynolds on his Twitter account, saying he acted on Northern Ireland "when it mattered". Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, who is also from Sinn Féin, praised Mr Reynolds' contribution to the peace process. Mr McGuiness tweeted: "Very sad to hear that former taoiseach Albert Reynolds has died. Deep sympathy to Kathleen and family. Albert was a peacemaker." Mr Reynolds became a member of Dáil Éireann (Irish Parliament) at the 1977 general election, when he was elected for the constituency of Longford/Westmeath. As Irish minister for posts and telegraphs and minister for transport from 1979-81, he revolutionised the telecommunications system. As minister for industry and energy in 1982, Mr Reynolds developed the National Grid, establishing the gas pipeline from Cork to Dublin. He was minister for industry and commerce in 1987-88 and minister for finance, 1988-91. Mr Reynolds was removed from the cabinet for challenging the leadership of his predecessor Charles Haughey in 1991. However, he assumed the mantle of leadership shortly afterwards in a continuation of the coalition government with the Progressive Democrats. At the beginning of 1993, Mr Reynolds was returned to office in coalition with the Labour Party. Mr Reynolds resigned as leader of Fianna Fáil and taoiseach later in 1994, after his coalition partners in the Labour Party pulled out of government because of a controversy that involved the extradition of paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth. Mr Reynolds had appointed Attorney General Harry Whelehan to the post of president of the High Court. Mr Whelehan had been heavily criticised over his handling of the extradition of Fr Smyth to Northern Ireland.

Ireland's former prime minister Albert Reynolds has died at the age of 81.

That steady stream of stories has led to the launch of a major public inquiry into their activities. The breadth and nature of what is being alleged is almost too big to grasp, but it fundamentally comes down to a simple question of whether elements of the police were out of control. So, here are seven key themes and allegations that lie in the road ahead - and some of the real practical and legal problems the inquiry faces. Some police officers had relationships with women whom they met within the protest movements they had been deployed to infiltrate. Last year, the Metropolitan Police paid one woman who had a child with an officer £425,000 in compensation. There are approximately a dozen civil claims for damages before the courts amid allegations that officers were expected to have relationships as part of their cover identity. But how many did so and under what circumstances? This is a huge challenge for the inquiry. How will it find out and inform the public if the undercover officer involved remains unknown, there are no records and, crucially, the partner never had any suspicions? During the 40-year history of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) - the police unit at the heart of many of the allegations - officers used 106 "covert identities". According to a published police review, some 42 of them were almost certainly taken from children who had died - and the parents did not know about it. In 2013, a senior officer said the practice wasn't sanctioned by Scotland Yard - yet it seemed to have gone on for years. How many names were used? Who authorised it? Should the parents have known? If the names of the dead children are revealed, will that identify the officers the police want to protect? The undercover affair has so far led to more than 50 convictions being quashed after a failure to disclose that officers had infiltrated protest groups later accused of criminality. The two largest cases relate to environmental protests at power stations, both of which involved Mark Kennedy, an officer with the National Public Order Intelligence Unit. He would drive protesters around, effectively facilitating demonstrations later found to have broken the law. A review for the Home Office said there could be a possible further 83 miscarriages of justice - although its author, Mark Ellison QC, couldn't be sure there were not more. So will the inquiry look at allegations that officers lied in court? John Jordan was convicted over his role in a protest in 1996 - but was cleared on appeal in 2013 after it emerged that his co-defendant was Jim Boyling, an undercover officer. The officer even gave evidence in character. Jordan has been taking legal action for a full explanation of what happened. Peter Francis, the only former SDS officer speaking publicly, says that Scotland Yard kept intelligence files on MPs during the 1990s. During his time in Special Branch, he says he saw files on 10 Labour MPs which he and others would regularly update. So what did that monitoring amount to? Was the information on MPs incidental, gathered as part of watching campaign groups? Or did some Scotland Yard chiefs want deeper intelligence on the MPs? Separate allegations have emerged that undercover officers also gathered information on some trade union activists. The most toxic allegation so far has been that Scotland Yard had a "spy" in the Lawrence family camp. He later had a meeting with a senior officer helping to prepare Scotland Yard for the public inquiry into the London teenager's murder. The exact nature of what information was gathered, why it was gathered and how it was used remains unclear. The then Metropolitan Police Commissioner and now peer, Lord Condon, has said that had he known of the existence of such undercover action in relation to the Lawrences, he would have stopped it. Peter Francis spent four years deep undercover and he eventually became mentally ill, suffering post-traumatic stress disorder. Today, he says some of what he was asked to do was wrong - and he wants senior officers to account for the way they deployed officers like him. He is not the only officer to have had concerns about the ethics of their work. Phase two of the inquiry is expected to look at the "operational governance and oversight" of undercover operations, including how officers are selected, trained, managed and cared for. The most important acronym in this inquiry stands for Neither Confirm Nor Deny. It's a legal position adopted by the police and other security agencies in cases involving protection of undercover officers or sensitive sources. The first potential legal battle will come if police will refuse to admit whether or not they had officers deployed in specific circumstances. Official reports have already revealed the existence of some of these undercover officers - such as the one who was in a campaign group close to the Lawrence family - but they remain anonymous. If officers remain in the shadows because, quite simply, they were incredibly good at their job, police chiefs will almost certainly argue that the public interest lies in protecting their anonymity because of their legal duty of care.

The allegations of wrongdoing by undercover police officers that have emerged since 2011 have been extraordinary.

Josh Gillies beat Cameron Belford in the visitors' goal with a fine free-kick to put the Tynesiders ahead. But Wrexham were back on level terms before half-time when Sean Newton produced an equally fine set-piece. Ryan Bowman scored a fine winner for Gateshead, though, heading Craig Baxter's cross from the right across goal and into the net. Gateshead manager Malcolm Crosby told BBC Newcastle: "To go and beat Wrexham tells me we have a decent side. "We were disappointing in the first half but you have to give Wrexham credit because they played really well. "In the first half, we didn't pass the ball well enough but in the second half, we did; that made the big difference. "You come to watch football to see goals like our second one. It was a great bit of play, a wonderful cross and a great finish." Wrexham manager Gary Mills told BBC Radio Wales Sport: "It was disappointing. We've had two or three games now when the second half has not been as good as the first. "We were too open at times in the second half... having said that we've had some good chances and we haven't stuck it in the back of the net. "They've not had a load of chances: a good free-kick for the first one and then obviously a good headers for the second one." Match ends, Gateshead 2, Wrexham 1. Second Half ends, Gateshead 2, Wrexham 1. Corner, Wrexham. Attempt saved. Connor Jennings (Wrexham) left footed shot from a difficult angle on the left is saved. Foul by Joel Logan (Wrexham). James Marwood (Gateshead) wins a free kick. Foul by Jimmy Phillips (Gateshead). Adriano Moke (Wrexham) wins a free kick. Corner, Gateshead. Offside, Wrexham. Connor Jennings tries a through ball, but Connor Jennings is caught offside. Attempt saved. Josh Gillies (Gateshead) right footed shot from outside the box is saved. Hand ball by Dominic Vose (Wrexham). Attempt missed. Manny Smith (Wrexham) header from the centre of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Dominic Vose. Corner, Wrexham. Attempt missed. Connor Jennings (Wrexham) header from the right side of the box misses to the right. Assisted by Sean Newton with a cross. Foul by Josh Gillies (Gateshead). Dominic Vose (Wrexham) wins a free kick. Foul by Lee Fowler (Wrexham). Jimmy Phillips (Gateshead) wins a free kick. Foul by Connor Jennings (Wrexham). Matty Pattison (Gateshead) wins a free kick. Foul by James Marwood (Gateshead). Joel Logan (Wrexham) wins a free kick. Substitution, Wrexham. Joel Logan replaces Wes York. Attempt missed. Ben Clark (Gateshead) header from a difficult angle on the left misses to the left. Assisted by Josh Gillies. Corner, Gateshead. Foul by James Marwood (Gateshead). Lee Fowler (Wrexham) wins a free kick. Corner, Wrexham. Foul by Ryan Bowman (Gateshead). Jamal Fyfield (Wrexham) wins a free kick. Attempt missed. Connor Jennings (Wrexham) header from the centre of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Sean Newton with a cross. Substitution, Wrexham. Lee Fowler replaces Rob Evans. Foul by Sean Newton (Wrexham). Josh Gillies (Gateshead) wins a free kick. Attempt missed. Dominic Vose (Wrexham) right footed shot from outside the box misses to the right. Corner, Wrexham. Attempt saved. Josh Gillies (Gateshead) left footed shot from outside the box is saved. Substitution, Wrexham. Adam Smith replaces James Gray. Goal! Gateshead 2, Wrexham 1. Ryan Bowman (Gateshead) header from a difficult angle on the right to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Jamie Chandler with a cross.

Gateshead leapfrogged Wrexham into second place in the National League with a hard-fought win.

The occasion was part of the celebrations to mark the Queen's official 90th birthday. It was one of many "patrons lunch" events organised throughout the UK and across the Commonwealth. The street parties were intended to bring people together while raising funds for local charities and community programmes.

The Braemar Gathering group has been holding a traditional street party with local residents in Royal Deeside.

If Wydad Casablanca of Morocco defeat visiting ASEC Mimosas of Ivory Coast on Sunday in Group A, Wydad and Zesco will qualify for the semi-finals of Africa's premier club football competition. Zesco have eight points, Wydad seven, Ahly five and ASEC four in a mini-league where head-to-head records count in the event of a tie. Ahly, who needed maximum points to keep up their hopes of progressing, dominated possession for much of the match in Alexandria. But Zesco, looking for a first semi-finals appearance, were quick on the counter-attack, and frustrated the Egyptians who are managed by former Tottenham boss Martin Jol. Kenya's Jesse Were took advantage of slack marking to nod the Zambians into a sixth-minute lead with Rami Rabia levelling on the half hour. Were struck again five minutes later, hitting the ball across goalkeeper Ahmed Adel into the far corner. Veteran striker Emad Meteb was brought on in the second half and snatched an 85th-minute equaliser for the Egyptians. His penalty area bicycle kick deflected off Kenyan David Owino, leaving goalkeeper Jacob Banda stranded. The result means that a semi-final place could be secured for Zesco and Wydad Casablanca, if Wydad can beat ASEC Mimosas on Sunday. Wydad, coached by Wales-born former Real Madrid manager John Toshack, want to get back on the winning trail in Rabat. They have taken only one point of a possible six off Ahly after beating ASEC and Zesco. The loss of form by star striker Reda Hajhouj must be a worry as he has fired four straight blanks in group matches after scoring six goals in six qualifiers. Since shocking Ahly in Alexandria, 1998 champions ASEC have faltered, losing away and drawing at home against Zesco. Mamelodi Sundowns of South Africa have won Group B thanks to three consecutive victories, leaving Zamalek of Egypt and Enyimba of Nigeria to fight for the second semi-finals spot. Five-time African champions Zamalek beat Enyimba away and one point from the return match in Cairo Sunday will guarantee their progress, if only on head-to-head records.

Record eight-times African champions Al Ahly of Egypt are facing elimination from the 2016 African Champions League after being held 2-2 at home by Zesco United of Zambia.

Warren, 79, who started the Granada Television show when he was 24, died on 1 March after a short illness. His coffin was carried into the cathedral by members of the cast, watched by the crowds outside. Among those who attended the service were Julie Goodyear and William Roache, who has played Ken Barlow since the first episode in 1960. Goodyear, famous for playing barmaid Bet Lynch, paid a heartfelt tribute to Warren, a friend of 50 years. "We cried together and we laughed together," she said. Canon Philip Barratt said all the hymns and readings at the funeral, which was also open to members of the public, were chosen by Warren. "It's a big service for a very big character and a lovely part of the history of Manchester," he said. Former stars in the congregation included Ken Morley, who played Reg Holdsworth, and Christopher Quinten, best known for his role as mechanic Brian Tilsley. Warren was born Anthony McVay Simpson in Eccles, Salford, in 1937, and took the stage name of Warren during his career as a child star. He trained at Liverpool's Elliott Clarke Theatre School and was a regular on the BBC radio show Children's Hour, before acting in radio plays alongside some of the actors who would became household names because of Coronation Street, including Violet Carson and Doris Speed. His idea for the soap opera was commissioned for 13 episodes by Granada in 1960 and the show has gone on to be one of the UK's most successful ever, reaching viewing figures of 26.6 million for the departure of the much-loved character Hilda Ogden in 1987. He wrote episodes for the ITV soap until the late 1970s and was made an MBE in 1994 for his services to television drama. The writer remained a consultant on the soap until his death, with his creator credit appearing at the start of the closing credits of every episode.

The funeral of Coronation Street creator and writer Tony Warren has taken place at Manchester Cathedral.

The Invergordon lifeboat was launched and local coastguards teams deployed at about 14:30. As they headed to the scene it was reported that the dinghy had come to rest on a sandbank. The local coastguards on the ground were able to reach the inflatable vessel and help the occupants to safety. Invergordon Lifeboat spokesman Michael MacDonald said: "They were lucky to come to rest on a sandbank. "If the wind had picked up it could have been blown them further out with the tide also on it's way out and they could have been put in more danger."

Two adults and a child were rescued by coastguard teams after their dinghy was blown offshore near Nairn East beach.

Ranieri guided Leicester to the title despite them being rated 5,000-1 shots at the start of the 2015-16 campaign. The Foxes are 17th this season and lost to League One Millwall in the FA Cup. "It is very sad," said Match of the Day presenter Lineker. "It is inexplicable to me. It's inexplicable to a lot football fans who love the game." Speaking to BBC Radio 4, the 56-year-old added: "I suppose you can explain it in terms of a panic decision and for me a wrong decision. "I shed a tear last night for Claudio, for football and for my club." After news of the 65-year-old Italian's dismissal broke on Thursday, former England captain Lineker, who played for his hometown club for seven seasons, said the "game's gone" in a post on social media. "It's a sign of modern football, what happened last season was truly extraordinary, " he added on Friday. "The lack of gratitude from the owners of the club and who knows who else involved in such a decision beggars belief. "That season will remain with us forever, it was truly special and a lot of that was down to the management. "The same guy cannot be considered incapable of doing the job a few months months later after achieving what, for me, was the biggest miracle in sport." Chelsea dismissed Jose Mourinho as manager the season after their 2015 title and Lineker says while that is "expected at big clubs", the decision to sack Ranieri "takes away from the glory" for the Foxes. "For a club like Leicester to win the league last season, the magnificence of the story, the likeability of the club under Ranieri - the ultimate gentleman - it kind of demeans the club. "Leicester were hugely popular right around the world. To do something like this now loses a lot of that popularity." France midfielder N'Golo Kante moved to Chelsea for £30m in the summer and Lineker said losing the 25-year-old was "huge". He added: "There were a whole host of things that made the season fairly inevitable in the sense it would never be anything like last season. "They had a journeyman back four that was protected brilliantly by Kante. They were an ageing back four, who are a year older. "All of a sudden they were on pre-season tours, playing Barcelona, travelling all over the world. They were not prepared for the new season and then the confidence aspect sneaks in." Former Leicester and England goalkeeper Peter Shilton, said the club's struggles this season made Ranieri's sacking understandable. Speaking to Radio 4, he said: "Going down would be a disaster for Leicester and I suppose the board have made a very brave decision. "If they stay in the Premier League then they've made the right decision. A lot of people will say there's no sentiment in football, look at what he's done for the club, but he's had a lot of the season to get things going. "There's obviously some reason why not. We're not privy to that - maybe the board are. Maybe there's unrest in the dressing room, who knows? Maybe the players just aren't performing." Leicester owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha used social media platform Instagram to explain why he sacked Ranieri. "We have done our best as management, we do not have only one problem to solve, but there are a million things to do to make our club survive, " the billionaire wrote. "Please respect my decision, I will never let the club down". This content will not work on your device, please check Javascript and cookies are enabled or update your browser Jason Bourne, BBC Radio Leicester "There's almost a sense of grief in the city today, with many having lost their 'favourite uncle'. "Claudio Ranieri was the man that brought the dream to life by winning the Premier League title. It has gone sour this term with players underperforming, new signings not working out and baffling tactics at time from the Tinkerman. "I thought they would get relegated with Ranieri in charge. I hated to say it. I hoped it wouldn't come true and I'd be proved wrong. "This gives them a chance. A different kind of chance to stay up." Phil McNulty, BBC chief football writer: It is almost the thought that dare not speak its name amid the wave of shock, outrage and disgust at Leicester's decision to ruthlessly dismiss the hugely popular 65-year-old, who won the hearts of all supporters with his good humour, class and dignity as he led the Foxes to the title. But is there actually method in what many see as the madness of the club's Thai owners? Leicester's fall has been more dramatic than anything they could have foreseen in their worst nightmares. A win for any of Sunderland, Crystal Palace and Hull City this weekend would put the Foxes in the relegation places. Wins for all three and they would be bottom by the time they face Liverpool on what will now be a highly charged occasion at the King Power on Monday. After 26 games last year they were top on 53 points, two ahead of Spurs. This season they are 17th after 25 games, with only 21 points. Last season they had lost only three games compared with 14 in this campaign, and conceded only 29 goals compared with 43 this term. Indeed, they only conceded 36 in the entire 2015-16 season. The difference is stark and, very clearly in the opinion of Leicester's owners, dangerous. Pat Murphy, BBC Radio 5 live I understand some influential players in the dressing room, who were part of the Nigel Pearson squad a couple of years ago, were making graphic contrasts with team spirit and the organisational qualities of Pearson compared with Ranieri this season. The club never really lost faith in Pearson this time two years ago. Despite the fact they were in the parlous position, the general feeling was that he had the dressing room and knew where he was going. He left in the summer of 2015 for different reasons - personal reasons associated with his son, who was on the staff. Quite clearly, Ranieri had lost a lot of key allies in that Leicester dressing room with long memories. On 7 February, Leicester issued a statement saying Ranieri had their "unwavering support". Sixteen days later they sacked the 65-year-old Italian, who had signed a new four-year deal in the summer. His departure came a day after the Foxes won praise for their performance despite losing 2-1 in their Champions League last-16 first-leg tie at Sevilla. "Ranieri was told he was sacked on Thursday afternoon in Leicester once the team returned from Spain, but the suggestion is the owners decided before that defeat by Sevilla," said BBC sports editor Dan Roan. "The decision was taken very reluctantly but the club's owners are desperate to avoid relegation and its consequences." Foxes vice-chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha said: "This has been the most difficult decision we have had to make in nearly seven years since King Power took ownership of Leicester City. "But we are duty-bound to put the club's long-term interests above all sense of personal sentiment, no matter how strong that might be. "Claudio has brought outstanding qualities to his office. His skilful management, powers of motivation and measured approach have been reflective of the rich experience we always knew he would bring to Leicester City." Srivaddhanaprabha added: "His warmth, charm and charisma have helped transform perceptions of the club and develop its profile on a global scale. We will forever be grateful to him for what he has helped us to achieve. "It was never our expectation that the extraordinary feats of last season should be replicated this season. Indeed, survival in the Premier League was our first and only target at the start of the campaign. "But we are now faced with a fight to reach that objective and feel a change is necessary to maximise the opportunity presented by the final 13 games." A news conference with Leicester assistant manager Craig Shakespeare will take place at 13:00 GMT on Friday. Media playback is not supported on this device This content will not work on your device, please check Javascript and cookies are enabled or update your browser 14 February 2016: Leicester lose 2-1 at Arsenal, their final defeat of the 2015-16 season before a 12-game unbeaten run. 2 May 2016: The Foxes are crowned champions of England for the first time in their history as Tottenham draw at Chelsea. 16 July 2016: Midfielder N'Golo Kante leaves to sign a five-year deal with Chelsea. 13 August 2016: Leicester lose their first game of the 2016-17 season - a 2-1 defeat at Hull City. 15 October 2016: The Foxes are hammered 3-0 by table-topping Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. 22 November 2016: Leicester secure top spot in their Champions League group with one game to spare. 18 December 2016: Ranieri is named Coach of the Year at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards. 7 February 2017: After a run of two wins in 15 league games, Leicester give Ranieri their "unwavering support". 22 February 2017: The Foxes lose 2-1 to Sevilla in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie. 23 February 2017: Ranieri is sacked.

Leicester's decision to sack Claudio Ranieri nine months after winning the Premier League made former Foxes striker Gary Lineker "shed a tear".

The move was confirmed during a backbench debate on the row over Carol Mills' choice as preferred candidate. Commons Speaker John Bercow decided recently to pause the process amid MPs' concerns about her suitability. Mr Straw told MPs that it was "imperative" that the future status and remit of the job was agreed upon. The clerk of the House is the principal constitutional adviser to the Commons, and adviser on all its procedure and business. Paid £200,000 a year, he or she is also responsible for the overall administration of the House of Commons, including the signing of leases, contracts and public expenditure on Commons services. MPs have questioned the selection of Carol Mills - who works in the Australian Parliament - to replace the former Clerk Sir Robert Rogers, who retired in July. Speaking in a debate in the Commons, Jesse Norman - who has led opposition to the appointment - said disquiet over the job raised wider questions about how the Commons governed itself. "This debate arises because of a widespread concern among colleagues across the House that the appointment process for the next clerk of this House was seriously flawed," he said. Mr Norman said the new committee - which will report early next year - would examine the question of whether the procedural and management roles of the Clerk should be divided between different officials. Mr Bercow, who headed the panel which originally chose Ms Mills but was not in the chair for Wednesday's debate, has said the proposal has merit and should be considered by MPs. Confirming his involvement, Mr Straw said the committee would look into the case for separating the roles and how that might work in practice and make a series of recommendations. However, he expressed concern that the committee was having to complete its work in nine weeks. Ex-Commons leader Andrew Lansley - who sat on the original selection panel - said he believed the appointment was mistaken and accused Mr Bercow of seeking to "water down" the requirement in the job description that the Clerk should have "detailed knowledge of the procedures and practices of the House". He said he believed the entire appointment process should be abandoned and a clerk appointed on a temporary basis until the House reached agreement on the future of the role. But Labour MP Barry Sheerman said critics of the appointment had a "secret agenda", which amounted to wanting to "have a go at the Speaker". And Tory MP Philip Davies said colleagues of his who were using the row as a "Trojan Horse for a personal vendetta" against Mr Bercow looked "absolutely ridiculous". For the government, deputy Commons leader Tom Brake said it was "entirely proper" for the committee to look into the matter, saying the terms of the review was an issue for MPs, not ministers. But he said it was important that it should be done in a "timely manner" and that the public should know which Commons officials were accountable for the "substantial challenges" the House faced.

Former Labour minister Jack Straw is to chair an inquiry into the governance of the House of Commons amid a row over the hiring of a new Commons Clerk.

The carmaker has also released the first images of the concept car upon which the new Defender will be based, the DC100. This is set to make its public debut at next month's Frankfurt motor show. The first Land Rover was introduced in 1948 and its basic design has changed little over the past six decades. More than two million have now been sold. The Defender name was first used in the early 1990s, shortly after the launch of the Discovery. By Jorn MadslienBusiness reporter, BBC News Land Rover insists its next Defender will be a rugged workhorse, having ruled out moving it upmarket as a luxurious car that simply looks butch on the outside. But competing in the market for working vehicles will be a major challenge. Land Rover can no longer rely on military contracts, so more promising markets might be in developing countries such as Brazil, Russia, India and China, where working vehicle sales are booming in parallel with rapid economic growth that is predicted to continue for decades yet. To succeed in these markets, a new Defender will need to be able to compete on both price and quality. It will need to be both cheaper - so the cost of production will need to come down - and better, in terms of both capabilities and fuel economy. And arguably, the overhaul cannot come too soon for a vehicle that now feels hopelessly outdated next to the company's latest offering, the Range Rover Evoque. Evoque to leave Defender in the dust? Land Rover's director of design, Gerry McGovern, said: "Replacing the iconic Defender is one of the biggest challenges in the automotive design world; it is a car that inspires people worldwide. "[The DC100] isn't a production-ready concept but the beginning of a four-year journey to design a relevant Defender for the 21st century." John Edwards, Land Rover's global brand director, added that the company was "determined that the new Defender will be true to its heritage, while meeting the requirements of a changing global market". UK-based Land Rover and its sister brand Jaguar are owned by India's Tata Motors. "Land Rover insists its next Defender will be a rugged workhorse, having ruled out moving it upmarket as a luxurious car that simply looks butch on the outside," says BBC business reporter Jorn Madslien. "But competing in the market for working vehicles will be a major challenge." Land Rover can no longer rely on military contracts, so more promising markets might be in emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, India and China, where working vehicle sales are booming in parallel with rapid economic growth that is predicted to continue for decades yet. "To succeed in these markets, a new Defender will need to be able to compete on both price and quality," says our reporter. "It will need to be both cheaper - so the cost of production will need to come down - and better, in terms of both capabilities and fuel economy."

Land Rover will release an all-new version of its Defender model in 2015, it has confirmed.

Wales international Huws, 23, is a Manchester City academy graduate. Samuel, 22, came through the ranks at Reading and has two goals in 16 senior appearances for the Championship side. He has also previously had loan spells at Colchester, Dagenham, Coventry and Gillingham and was Ipswich's sixth addition of the transfer window. Samuel signed during Ipswich's 3-0 defeat by Derby and will be ineligible to face his parent club on Saturday. Huws, Ipswich's seventh January signing, links up with his international team-mate Jonny Williams, who is on loan from Crystal Palace. Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page or visit our Premier League tracker here.

Ipswich Town have signed Cardiff midfielder Emyr Huws and Reading striker Dominic Samuel on loan until the end of the season.

Using measurements from an infrared telescope in Hawaii, a UK and US team found evidence for temperatures as high as 1,500C - hundreds of degrees warmer than anywhere else on the planet. They suggest the hotspot is created by thunderous soundwaves "breaking" in the thin upper reaches of the atmosphere. The research is published in Nature. It arguably solves what planetary scientists had dubbed an "energy crisis" for gas giants like Jupiter: temperatures in their upper atmospheres soar much higher than can be explained by solar energy - especially given their vast distances from the Sun. If the mysterious heat were generated by local sources, like Jupiter's famous storm, then the conundrum would be solved - and these measurements are the first direct evidence of any such activity. Study co-author Dr Tom Stallard, from the University of Leicester, said this was a major step forward in a "20-30 year odyssey" to try and understand heat flow on Jupiter. "Ever since Voyager, we've had measurements of the temperature at the top of Jupiter's atmosphere, and it's been hot across the whole globe - from the poles, all the way to the equator," he told the BBC. Jupiter's enormous, dramatic aurora can explain the heat in the polar regions, but for that warmth to reach the equator would require incredibly dramatic mixing, which modelling studies haven't been able to support. "There's no real excuse for it to be so hot," said Dr James O'Donoghue from Boston University, the paper's first author. The freshly discovered spike in temperature, detected using a spectrometer at the Nasa Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, offers a solution. Several hundred km directly above the clouds of the Great Red Spot, the hotspot suggests that high-altitude heat is somehow created by the turmoil beneath. "Several people have argued that it's likely that the heat comes from below, but the observations have never backed them up," Dr Stallard said. He and his colleagues don't know exactly what is causing the heat, but they have some ideas. It could be driven by great Jovian thunderclaps, rumbling upwards from the churning red clouds of the Solar System's biggest storm. "You get some kind of acoustic event, probably thunder or something like that - or possibly other forms of sound energy - and that propagates directly upwards," Dr Stallard explained. "That wave will continue going upwards until it reaches a lower-density region at the top of the atmosphere, and then it breaks and deposits all that wave energy into the top of the atmosphere, just like waves break on the shore - as the water gets thinner, it's less able to carry that wave and so it breaks and you see lots of energy." There is a precedent for such sound-driven warming much closer to home, according to Dr O'Donoghue. "There is some evidence in Earth's atmosphere, above storms and above features such as mountains - the Andes mountains in fact - that there are acoustic waves emanating from them, and that they propagate up into the atmosphere and cause heating there," he said. The key to revealing the temperature spike was a tiny ion: H3+, a hydrogen molecule (H2) with an added proton. It is incredibly reactive and consequently, short-lived and rare on Earth. But in the sparse fringe of Jupiter's outer atmosphere there is almost nothing else for it to react with. Crucially, this ion works like a glowing, long-range thermometer for scientists, if they have the right sort of telescope - such as the spectrometer at the IRTF, which gathered the relevant data in a single nine-hour window back in 2012. "Just by measuring its light, you can find out the temperature wherever it is," said Dr O'Donoghue. "And it's throughout all of the gas giant upper atmospheres - so it's essentially an in situ temperature probe." Further insights might come from Nasa's Juno spacecraft, now in orbit around Jupiter after its five-year trek. Dr Stallard said that telescopes around the world were trained on the gas giant to take parallel measurements - and his team had planned their observations with the mission in mind. "We thought, this is something that we haven't addressed, and it needed addressing. We've really ramped up our studies away from the aurora. "Juno's going to reveal magnificent levels of detail about... what the aurora are and how they're generated. But it will be interesting to see how much it tells us about the non-auroral regions and the top of the atmosphere. "Obviously it's been designed to look deep, and to look at the aurora at the poles, but potentially Juno could reveal a lot more." Follow Jonathan on Twitter

Jupiter's Great Red Spot - a hurricane three times bigger than Earth - is blasting the planet's upper atmosphere with heat, astronomers have found.

Two cars were damaged in the incident in the Nursery Drive and Parkhead area of Newry on Friday night. Assistant Chief Constable Stephen Martin said he was a "appalled by mindless attacks on PSNI officers and the Newry community". A post on the PSNI Newry & Mourne Facebook page said that police were "carrying out duties" when attacked. It added: "We would also appeal to parents to know where their children are and what they are doing."

Police have been attacked in County Down by up to 30 young people throwing stones.

The snap drill in the Rostov region was ordered by President Vladimir Putin. The southern military district includes Crimea - the peninsula annexed by Russian forces in 2014 - and areas on the border with eastern Ukraine. Pro-Russian rebels also held military drills in eastern Ukraine last week. The self-styled "Donetsk People's Republic" tested heavy artillery and rocket systems in the Torez area, near the rebel-held city of Donetsk. Nato, Western leaders and the Ukrainian government accuse Russia of sending heavy armour and regular troops to the rebels. Moscow denies that, but admits that Russian "volunteers" are helping the rebels. A shaky ceasefire is in place, but both sides - the rebels and Ukrainian government forces - are still far off fulfilling the Minsk peace deal they signed up to. The Russian military did not indicate any connection between the current exercises in southern Russia and the Ukraine situation. The exercises include the rapid deployment of troops from 3,000km (1,860 miles) away and the preparation of emergency runways for the air force. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said its monitors in the eastern Ukraine conflict zone had seen continuing use of "proscribed weapons, heavy artillery", despite the Minsk agreement. In a statement to the BBC, the OSCE said the tension levels "still ebb and flow". In late January there were more than 1,000 ceasefire violations "in different places along the contact line", but in early February the conflict zone "remained relatively calm", the OSCE said. The main hotspots remain: the area north of Horlivka, especially Zaitseve village (about 45km north of Donetsk), also around the Donetsk airport, Debaltseve and the triangle Kominternove-Pavlopil-Oktiabr south of Donetsk. Russia's exercises come as its air force contingent in Syria carries out heavy bombing to push anti-government rebels away from the city of Aleppo. Some of Russia's latest military equipment is involved in the Syria mission, including four Sukhoi Su-35S fighters - a type that only entered service with the Russian military last year.

Russia is holding combat readiness exercises involving 8,500 troops, with dozens of ships and aircraft, in a southern region near areas of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian rebels.

Glasgow-based Gregor Smith was taken up and down Scotland's west coast in a friend's boat to create paintings and etchings of Lismore and Mull. He also made several long drives north to Caithness, Sutherland and Wester Ross for paintings of Achiltibuie and sea stacks at Duncansby Head. The collection, Far Shore, is being exhibited at Glasgow's Compass Gallery. Smith said: "There are advantages to working from a boat, as it opens up so many more vistas and viewpoints. "You have to work quickly though." He added: "I travelled with my sketchbook, chalks, pencils and other materials and captured as much as I could, but if you're accustomed to using your eyes, you'll see and record a lot of it in your mind."

A Scottish artist captured many of the landscapes for his latest collection of works from the sea.

Everton supporter Michael Cullen, 50, completed the 11-day challenge ahead of his team's FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United on Saturday. He has now raised more than £53,000 for the Woodlands Hospice in Liverpool, having previously raised £30,000 after swimming the English Channel. Everton lost the game 2-1, with United scoring a late injury time winner. Mr Cullen said: "I'm very tired, but elated. On the last day I was very happy all the way and it was great to arrive there. "I'm back at work tomorrow and I'm actually looking forward to getting back to normality." Carole Riley, of Woodlands Hospice, said: "We are very proud and appreciative of Michael's efforts. "Not only has he generated a massive amount of money but he has raised the awareness and profile of Woodlands Hospice and the need for hospice services to such a wide audience. "We would like to give a massive big and sincere thank you to Speedo Mick and all those who have supported him."

A football fan who walked to Wembley wearing his swimming trunks has broken his £50,000 fundraising target.

United will be in the Champions League and boss Jose Mourinho said executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward has had his targets "for more than two months". Mourinho wants to enhance his forward and defensive options to challenge for the Premier League title next season. United have been linked with Atletico Madrid striker Antoine Griezmann and Burnley centre-back Michael Keane. "Ed Woodward has my list," the Portuguese manager said after his side beat Ajax to win the Europa League for the first time on Wednesday. "Now it's up to him and the owners." Griezmann has a 100m euro release clause in his contract and the 26-year-old France international said earlier this week that his chances of joining United were "six out of 10". Since then, a major stumbling block has been removed by United securing the return of Champions League football. They will go straight into the group stage after their victory over Ajax in Stockholm. Griezmann has the pace and trickery United lack but, should a move falter, Torino forward Andrea Belotti is another option. The 23-year-old Italy international has scored 25 goals in Serie A this season. Keane, meanwhile, left United for Burnley in January 2015 but Mourinho is known to be eager to bring the 24-year-old defender back to Old Trafford. The Portuguese views predecessor Louis van Gaal's decision to sell the centre-back for £2m as a mistake and believes his central defensive options are limited. In theory, a 25% sell-on clause agreed at the time of that deal should bring the price down. However, Burnley manager Sean Dyche has said the Clarets have no financial need to sell Keane, who made his England debut in March. Prior to the January transfer window, United showed interest in Benfica's Sweden centre-back Victor Lindelof, 22, while left-back is another area of weakness. Earning Champions League football means United have avoided the potential loss of £50m in sponsorship income and prize money. However, one senior club source said the forthcoming transfer window was likely to be "crazy", given the increased spending power within the Premier League as a result of the new £8.3bn TV deal and clubs such as Inter Milan and AC Milan willing to spend big to try to rediscover former glories. A year ago, Mourinho marked his first summer at Old Trafford by bringing in striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, defender Eric Bailly and midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan by the first week in July, before midfielder Paul Pogba re-signed from Juventus for a world record £89m in early August. In December, BBC Sport was told the United manager felt he needed at least two more transfer windows to shape his squad. Mourinho decided not to buy in January, but since then Ibrahimovic and defender Marcos Rojo have suffered cruciate knee-ligament injuries which will keep them out until next year and former Germany midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger has left for Major League Soccer in the United States. United went on to finish sixth in the Premier League which, apart from the disastrous campaign under David Moyes in 2013-14, was their lowest placing since 1991.

Manchester United are likely to limit their summer spending to three or four key signings.

The body was found near Heanor Memorial Park in Derbyshire. Derbyshire Police originally thought the man was 17-year-old Han Lan, but now believe it might be a 21-year-old man named Trung Thanh Hoang. The inquest also heard police think he may not have died at the park but that his body was dropped off there. Police officers are working with Vietnamese authorities to confirm his identity and to find relatives either in the UK or in Vietnam. The inquest at Derby Coroner's Court heard it was believed the man visited a nightclub in Birmingham on Christmas Eve before returning to an address in Derby after feeling unwell. The cause of death is yet to be established but a toxicology report showed high levels of a number of drugs in his system. Police are still treating his death as suspicious. The inquest was adjourned until the end of March.

The identity of a man found dead in a car park on Christmas Day is still not clear, an inquest into his death has heard.

However, it said the girls abducted from a school in Chibok in April 2014 were not among them. The military said the girls and women were freed during major operations ending in the seizure of four Boko Haram camps in the Sambisa Forest. A military spokesman said they were now being interviewed. Weapons were also seized at the camps taken in the latest operation, the military said. In recent months Nigerian security forces have taken back most of the territory previously under the control of Boko Haram, the BBC's Tomi Oladipo reports from Lagos. Gen Chris Olukolade said the hostages were freed as part of a major, ongoing operation. He said accurate intelligence had helped the military locate the camps, which had been attacked from all directions by ground and air forces. Last October, the government said it had secured an agreement for a ceasefire and the release of the girls taken from Chibok, but Boko Haram subsequently denied this. The abduction of the girls in Chibok sparked global outrage with many joining a campaign online to free them using the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. Several nations including the US and China vowed to help find them and there have been reported sightings of the girls, but none has been found to date. Meanwhile, the government of neighbouring Niger gave more details about fighting between its troops and Boko Haram on an island in Lake Chad over the weekend. It says 28 civilians died when Boko Haram attacked Karamga island and that 46 of its troops died in the battle for the island, along with more than 150 militants. Reports in local media have given a much higher death toll for government forces. Boko Haram's insurgency, and the army campaign against it, have killed more than 15,500 people since 2012. The violence has recently spread to neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

The Nigerian military says it has rescued 200 girls and 93 women from an area where the Islamist militant group Boko Haram is active.

The archive of travel writer, war hero and adventurer Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor has been catalogued by the National Library of Scotland. The collection includes letters from Prince Charles and Truman Capote. Sir Patrick, who was known as Paddy, died in 2011 at the age of 96. He published several books on his travels around the world and one of the most prized items in the archive is the only surviving notebook from his 1933 trek across Europe. The trek provided the material for his most famous books, 'A Time of Gifts', 'Between the Woods and the Water' and 'The Broken Road'. Thousands of items which occupy 16 metres of shelving took a year to be catalogued by library staff. Along with letters from notable 20th century figures they also uncovered literary manuscripts, sketches and what appears to be an unpublished John Betjeman poem on the back of an envelope. Sir Patrick spent much of World War Two on Nazi-occupied Crete. During his time there he disguised himself as a shepherd to organise guerrilla operations against the Nazis. He led one of the most daring feats of the war in 1944, capturing the commander of the German garrison on Crete. The 1957 film starring Dirk Bogarde 'Ill Met by Moonlight' was based on the operation. Graham Stewart, the library curator who worked on the archive project, said: "It is a history of the colourful life of a celebrated writer. He was undoubtedly a superstar of his day and his books have, if anything, grown in popularity over the years. "There has already been a lot of interest in the archive and we expect this to increase now among Leigh Fermor fans and people interested in the 20th century more generally." The library is working on digitising some of the archive so it can be viewed on its website. They are also considering holding exhibitions and displays of the collection so more people will be able to see it. The archive was given to the library by the John R Murray Charitable Trust. John Murray was Sir Patrick's publisher and the trust also supported the cataloguing of the collection.

A lifetime of diaries, letters and photographs of a man described as a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene has opened to the public.

Competitors aged 14 to 19 are hiking distances of up to 55 miles (89 km) visiting 10 nominated tors over two days. The 56th event started at 07:00 BST, with 2,400 teenagers - many from school and youth groups from across the South West - taking part. The first teams are expected to cross the finish line on Sunday morning. Source: BBC/Ten Tors The teenagers left Okehampton Camp, where Dartmoor National Park head ranger Rob Steemson said it was an "enormous challenge". The event is organised by the Army and assisted by the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force and the Dartmoor Rescue Group. Each team has a GPS tracker, so safety teams can find out where each group of teenagers is. The tracker also has an emergency button if help is needed.

Thousands of teenagers are trekking across Dartmoor in the famous Ten Tors challenge.

A formal complaint has been made to the European Commission by a group of Italian consumers' organisations. They accuse McDonald's of forcing franchisees to pay excessive rents and high fees. McDonald's said it shared risks and rewards with its licencees. In a statement, McDonald's said: "We are proud of our franchisees and are committed to working closely together so that they have the support they need to operate their restaurants and their businesses. "This approach, with the principle of sharing risk and reward, has been successful for many years and has helped create the best business opportunities for our franchisees and the best overall experience for our customers." The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and European unions, including the Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union in the UK, are supporting the formal antitrust complaint. "McDonald's abuse of its dominant market position hurts everyone: franchisees, consumers, and workers. We strongly urge the European Commission to investigate the charges and to use all of its powers to hold McDonald's accountable," said SEIU organising director, Scott Courtney. The European Commission said it would now study the submission. It has the powers to launch an investigation if it believes the allegations are founded. The consumer organisations claim franchisees are prevented from switching to competitors because McDonald's makes them sign longer-than-average contracts. They also said licensees lease premises from the company at above market rates. It is claimed this leads to poorer consumer choice and higher prices in franchise stores as opposed to those owned directly by the company. Franchisees own and operate 73% of McDonald's restaurants in Europe. McDonald's received $9.27bn (£6.40bn) in revenues from its franchised restaurants worldwide in 2014.

McDonald's has been accused of abusing its market power by imposing unfair and restrictive contracts on people operating its franchise restaurants in Europe.

11 September 2014 Last updated at 07:21 BST But today, nearly half of the Dutch firm's business is focused on healthcare. In fact, it's selling its home entertainment division and betting on new opportunities in Asia, where there's a growing aging population. Ashleigh Nghiem asked the company's chief executive, Frans van Houten, about this push into Asia.

When you think of the brand name Philips, you probably think of consumer electronics and lighting.

The extra funding will be paid directly to Welsh councils after they said more money was needed for the clean-up. Natural Resources Minister Alun Davies had already promised £3m to pay for emergency repairs. Most of the funding will be spent in Conwy, Denbighshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire. Mr Davies said: "We know that the weather over recent months has been extreme and that coastal authorities particularly have been working hard to repair the damage and ensure that flood defences within their communities are sound. "This additional £4.2m is in response to applications from local authorities in which they have set out their estimated flood repair costs. "It is specifically for the swift repair of flood defences and to help ensure the safety of people, homes and businesses in at-risk areas. "The recent review of the storms showed that our flood defences held up well... and that over 99% of at-risk homes were protected, preventing nearly £3bn in damages to property as well as saving lives. "However we know we can never be complacent about the potential impact of flooding on our communities." Much of the Welsh coast felt the full force of the storms during the winter. In Rhyl, Denbighshire, about 150 homes were swamped by waves when sea defences gave way at the beginning of December. Many of those affected are not expecting to return to their properties until the autumn. And people living on the seafront at Aberystwyth were evacuated on more than one occasion due to the threat from high tides and wave swells. Wind and waves battered the promenade leaving sand and debris covering the road. It was a similar picture elsewhere with many smaller resorts also being damaged, including Newgale in Pembrokeshire where a bus was hit by a wave and knocked off the road. About 60,000 tonnes of stones has to be returned to Llandudno's North Shore after the storms, according to Mike Priestley, Conwy cabinet member for environment, highways and sustainability. Another project is due to take place at Kinmel Bay to protect 6,000 properties, importing 25,000 tonnes of material on to the nearby beach. He said the work would not have gone ahead without the £3.8m promised funding, the largest share of the cash coming from the Welsh government. Councils have been left counting the cost with total bills running into millions of pounds. In all, £6.2m will be spent by Wales' 22 local authorities with £1m allocated to Natural Resources Wales. Meanwhile, the flood-hit tourism industry in north Wales has received a £720,000 boost from a Welsh government support fund. And a separate fund has been set aside for the fishermen to repair or replace gear damaged by the weather. The industry employs 1,900 people and is worth £20m a year to the Welsh economy.

Flood defences battered by winter storms around Wales are promised an extra £4.2m for "swift repair" by the Welsh government.

The woman, named only as Uzma, was escorted across the Wagah border by Indian High Commission officials. She has accused her husband, Tahir Ali, of torturing her. He denies the allegations. The incident comes amid increasing tension between India and Pakistan. On Thursday, India's Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted, welcoming her return: Pakistani security officials escorted Uzma, who is in her early 20s, to the border crossing in the morning. She arrived in Delhi later in the day. Uzma's return comes as India and Pakistan trade accusations over violence in disputed Kashmir, territory which both countries claim. Tensions also rose after Pakistan sentenced an Indian national, Kulbhushan Jadhav, to death on charges of spying. On her arrival in Delhi, Uzma described Pakistan as "a death trap". "I've seen women who go there after arranged marriages. They're miserable and living in terrible circumstances. There're two, three, even four wives in every house," she told a press conference. "If I'd remained there for a few days more, I would have died." Uzma met Tahir Ali in Malaysia and fell in love with him, according to reports. She then travelled to Pakistan earlier this month where, she said, she was forced into marriage on 3 May. While there is enough evidence to suggest that Uzma came to Pakistan of her own accord, it remains unclear why she changed her mind. Tahir Ali has said that his father sponsored Uzma's visa for Pakistan after the couple met in Malaysia and decided to get married. Uzma's contention that she was married at "gunpoint" sits uneasily against the fact that she, along with Mr Ali and his relatives, had visited a district court in Buner town to get married. The official who performed the wedding says she appeared to participate willingly in the ceremony. Mr Ali has alleged that Indian officials at the high commission forced her to change her mind. On 12 May, Uzma filed an appeal in the Islamabad High Court, accusing her husband of harassing and intimidating her, and taking away her travel documents to stop her from leaving Pakistan. She told the court that he had not told her that he was a married father of four and that she had been "terribly beaten... tortured physically and mentally". Uzma also has a five-year-old daughter from an earlier marriage. Her lawyer requested that the court should allow her to go back to India, saying her daughter was thalassaemic and needed daily blood transfusions. Mr Ali told BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad that the charges against him were false - he said she had known about his marital status and was "disappointed" that he was not allowed to speak to her under court's supervision. He said he was "confident" that she would get in touch with him once the dust had settled.

An Indian woman who alleges she was forced to marry a Pakistani man at gunpoint has returned to India, a day after a court in Islamabad granted her request to leave.

Victoria Gayle, 31, was charged with preventing the lawful and decent burial of a body after police discovered the remains of a baby at her home last month. Ms Gayle, previously of West Hendon, north London, appeared at Wimbledon Magistrates' Court on Monday afternoon. She spoke only to confirm her name, address, and date of birth. The court heard a post-mortem examination took place at Great Ormond Street Hospital on 2 June but the cause of death could not yet be determined. Ms Gayle was also charged with perverting the course of justice. She was not asked to submit a plea and will appear at Kingston Crown Court on 8 July. The charge follows a case review of an investigation into a child who went missing in 2004, which was sparked by the death of another child at an address in Barnet in 2015. The investigation led to the arrest of a 50-year-old woman in Fryent Crescent, West Hendon in north London. A 52-year-old man was also arrested on suspicion of preventing a lawful and decent burial. Both were bailed until mid-July.

A woman has been remanded in custody charged with covering up the death of a one-year-old for more than a decade.