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Bournemouth beach deaths: Children not related, police say - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A 12-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy died after being pulled from the sea in Bournemouth on Wednesday. | UK | We're going to end our live coverage now after today's police press conference on yesterday's incident at Bournemouth beach.
A 12-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy died after being pulled from the sea, while eight others were treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
You can read all the key details in our main story here.
Updates were written by Thomas Mackintosh and Malu Cursino, and the page was edited by me.
Thanks for joining us. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-65778225 |
Joe Biden falls during graduation ceremony - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | null | The US president had been shaking hands with Air Force Academy graduates when he fell on stage. | null | US President Joe Biden fell on stage at a graduation ceremony for the US Air Force Academy. He was helped up and seated within a few seconds.
The White House said he was "fine", and had tripped over a sandbag. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65780853 |
Kew Gardens: Endangered orchid species flowers in UK first - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | It was flown to the UK from Chicago two weeks ago, with the bud displayed at Chelsea Flower Show. | London | Dendrophylax lindenii has flowered for the first time in the UK
A species of endangered orchid has flowered in the UK for the first time.
Dendrophylax lindenii, known as the Florida Ghost Orchid in the US and Cuba, has blossomed at the Royal Botanic Gardens, in Kew, south-west London.
It was flown into the UK from Chicago two weeks ago, with the bud displayed at Chelsea Flower Show.
While awaiting Thursday's bloom, he said: "This is a wonderful example of a successful collaborative conservation project, with several universities and botanic gardens in the USA working together for the greater good, highlighting the importance of orchid conservation around the world."
There are only about 1,500 ghost orchid plants left in south Florida and 500 in Cuba, Professor Fay said.
After being included in the famous flower show, the orchid was donated to Kew Gardens, where it is on display in a terrarium in the Princess of Wales Conservatory.
It was germinated at the University of Florida in 2014, before it was donated to Chicago Botanic Garden.
Prof Fay said that orchids acted as a barometer for biodiversity loss and were often the first species to disappear when an ecosystem suffers.
"When a link in the chain breaks, orchids become endangered," he said.
Dendrophylax lindenii is recorded as "endangered" on IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
The population drastically declined when its host trees, 1,000-year-old bald cypresses, were logged in World War Two to provide lumber for aircraft carrier decks.
Kew Gardens has one of the oldest collections of living tropical orchids in the world, as well as more than 400,000 preserved specimens.
Each year it hosts an Orchid Festival in the Princess of Wales Conservatory.
Follow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected] | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-65767550 |
Bosses at ferry fiasco shipyard to receive bonuses - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | But its chief executive insists that the "gravy train" at the troubled Ferguson yard has come to an end. | Scotland politics | The project to build the two CalMac ferries is £200m over budget and six years behind schedule
Bosses at the troubled Clyde shipyard building two delayed and over-budget ferries will continue to receive bonus payments, MSPs have been told.
It emerged earlier this year that six executives at the nationalised Ferguson yard were awarded a total of £87,000.
First Minister Humza Yousaf has previously said he was angry about the payments and that bonuses should not be paid in future.
But the yard's chairman said the payments were "contractual".
Andrew Miller told Holyrood's Public Audit Committee that without such payments "the future of Ferguson Marine yard is at risk" and described them as "retention payments".
He said they would need to continue to be paid "because they're contractual, they're points of law and it is very difficult to say to somebody that we are just pulling that from your contract".
Mr Miller added: "It is very important we find the talent for the senior management. It is also very important we retain the talent for the senior management, in terms of completing our journey towards eventual profitability in our five-year plan.
"That is all very important to achieve. We have got to be competitive."
In a report to the Scottish Parliament in March, public spending watchdog the auditor general said it was "unacceptable" the bonus payments to the six executives in the 2021/22 financial year had not been cleared by the Scottish government.
The report added: "There was a lack of transparency and good governance around the assessment and approval of these payments".
The money is understood to have been paid under former turnaround director Tim Hair, who was recruited by the government after the yard was nationalised in 2019.
Mr Yousaf said in April that he "shared the anger" at the payments being made and that "for any future discussion or consideration of bonuses, I have made it clear there should not be bonuses paid" in relation to the two ferries.
Responding to Mr Miller's comments, a Scottish government spokesman said the bonus arrangements were signed off by the Ferguson Marine board without its knowledge.
He added: "The first minister previously made clear his anger at these payments and had sought advice as to whether they could be stopped.
"However - as we have already outlined - they form part of legacy employment contracts meaning they have been contractually unavoidable."
A review of remuneration and reward arrangements for 2023/24 is being carried out in consultation with the government and is expected to conclude by the end of July.
There has been controversy over salaries and bonuses paid to senior staff at the Ferguson yard since it was nationalised
The two CalMac ferries - the Glen Sannox and another boat currently known as Hull 802 - were ordered in 2015 when Ferguson Marine (FMEL) was owned by Jim McColl, a pro-independence businessman who had rescued the Port Glasgow yard from administration a year earlier.
The project soon ran into trouble, with the yard being taken over by the Scottish government in 2019, and the ships are now more than £200m overbudget and due to be delivered six years later than originally planned.
Mr McColl and the government-owned ferry procurement agency CMAL have each blamed each other for the problems.
The committee also heard from David Tydeman, the CEO of Ferguson Marine, who insisted that the "gravy train" at the shipyard had ended.
Mr Tydeman was told by Scottish Conservative MSP Craig Hoy that workers believed people had been taking big salaries and big bonuses while "not necessarily contributing to the health and wellbeing of the yard".
Mr Hoy asked: "Can you say, hand on heart, that gravy train culture has come to an end now?"
The chief executive replied: "Yes. I am very determined that it does come to an end and I have reduced the payroll costs by about £3m in the last 12 months."
His predecessor, Mr Hair, had an annual salary of about £790,000 a year. He got rid of Mr McColl's senior management team and his design consultants Vera Navis, and appointed new design consultants ICE, who are based in Romania.
Mr Tydeman, in comparison, has a basic annual salary of £205,000 with a 30% "at risk" element that depends on performance.
He told the committee that it was clear to him when he took the top job at Ferguson Marine in February last year that the planned delivery dates in 2022 and 2023 respectively for the Glen Sannox and Hull 802 were not achievable.
He said he believed this was the result of management mistakes by FMEL before it went into administration - but equally because of mistakes by Scottish government-owned company FMPG after the yard was nationalised in 2019.
He added: "In summary, my view remains that the increases came from four almost equal parts - mistakes by FMEL, mistakes by FMPG and from the pricing and time impacts."
But he said the yard remained "firmly targeted on delivering Glen Sannox before the end of this year and 802 before the end of next year".
Mr Tydeman also expressed confidence in the future of the yard, telling the committee that the current UK shipbuilding market was the most buoyant he had seen in his 40-year career, with demand exceeding capacity.
He said: "There is more than £250m of suitable work for Ferguson over the next five years from BAE and the CMAL small ferry programme.
"This combination creates really positive opportunities for us to get back on track and be competitive. I am pleased to advise that work has started with BAE at the Ferguson Port Glasgow yard and this is making a big difference to morale on site." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-65776465 |
Cannich wildfire could be largest recorded in UK - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Firefighters say flames burned through a 30 sq mile area near Cannich but it is now under control. | Highlands & Islands | A plume of smoke, in the centre of the image, could be seen drifting 12 miles towards Loch Ness
Firefighters say they have brought under control a wildfire that could be the largest recorded in the UK.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) said flames had burned through a 30 sq mile (80 sq km) area of scrub and woodland near Cannich in the Highlands.
Crews have been at the scene since Sunday, but the area has been affected by four separate fires since last week.
A 12-mile (20km) plume of smoke from the latest incident was detected from space by Nasa satellites.
Further analysis, including of satellite data, will confirm the eventual scale of the wildfire.
The incident has been hugely challenging for dozens of firefighters due to the terrain, and warm, dry and windy weather.
Two firefighters were hurt at the scene of the blaze after their all-terrain vehicle overturned.
They have been released from hospital following treatment and an investigation has begun into the cause of the accident.
Firefighters from across the Highlands, along with deer stalkers and waterbombing by helicopters, have been tackling the flames.
Group commander Jamie Thrower said an 80 sq km area had been affected
SFRS group commander Jamie Thrower said the fire had affected an area about five miles (8km) long and six miles (10km) wide.
He said: "We have got control of the fire and have the fire surrounded. Helicopters have been a useful tool for that and we have stopped the fire from spreading, but the weather is still causing a challenge."
Dr Thomas Smith, an associate professor in environmental geography at the London School of Economics, said satellite data going back about 20 years would help to confirm the scale of the wildfire, and if it is the largest recorded.
He said he was awaiting the latest satellite information for calculations to be made.
Before the incident at Cannich, the UK's biggest wildfire affected 20 sq miles (53 sq km) of peatland in Sutherland's Flow Country in May 2019, and the second largest occurred this April at Glenuig in Lochaber and involved about 13 sq miles (35 sq km).
SSEN said there was no damage to the electricity supply.
RSPB's Simon McLaughlin said local schoolchildren had sent him card after learning of the damage caused to native trees
Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) said it was believed the wildfire was associated with wild camping, and SFRS has urged people to be careful around campfires and disposing of cigarettes.
Energy company SSEN Transmission said it was monitoring the fire because of a number of electricity towers in the area.
It said there was no damage or threat to disruption of the electricity supply.
A spokeswoman said: "Our engineers have been on site and inspected the overhead powerline where it crosses through the affected area to safely assess for any impact as a result of the wildfire.
"We'll continue to monitor the area to ensure the line remains in safe operation, and liaise with fire and rescue services as required."
The wildfire has been burning since last week
The fire has damaged heather moorland and forestry
RSPB Scotland said the fire had spread on to its Corrimony Nature Reserve and had damaged birch woodland and heather moorland.
The reserve's Simon McLaughlin said the activities of ground-nesting birds had been badly affected and some species, including frogs, had died in the fire.
Trees planted, some by local schoolchildren, in an effort to regenerate native woodland have also been destroyed.
Mr McLaughlin said: "I got a wee card last night from the Cannich School kids saying sorry for the damage caused and they are here to help."
A wildfire in Moray in 2019 affected thousands of acres of grassland
The majority of incidents are caused by accident, according to Forestry and Land Scotland.
The Scottish government agency said people did not realise how quickly an ember from a campfire or a dropped cigarette could develop into a wildfire in an area of dry vegetation or woodland.
Wildfires can result in the release of carbon.
May 2019's wildfire in the Flow Country in Sutherland released an estimated 700,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere during the incident, according to a WWF Scotland study.
Other parts of Scotland have also seen major incidents.
In April 2019, a major wildfire near Paul's Hill wind farm at Knockando, south west of Elgin, destroyed more than 20 square miles (72 sq km) of grassland.
The Scottish Greens said the Highland region alone had seen about 360 recorded wildfires between 2017 and 2022.
Greens MSP Ariane Burgess said: "My thoughts are first of all with the two fire-fighters who have been injured."
She added: "The Highlands are on the front line of the climate crisis, make no mistake.
"Our habitats and our land use, our size and geography, and our place as the jewel in Scotland's natural crown means what we do here is of vital importance."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-65765053 |
Breast cancer: Woman's reconstruction delayed three times - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Women say they are facing "soul-destroying" waits for reconstructive surgery after breast cancer. | Wales | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Karen Rogers has had to wear a prosthetic breast for six years after surgery delays
A breast cancer survivor has said she feels "cast aside" due to reconstructive surgery being postponed three times this year.
Karen Rogers, 57, from Magor, Monmouthshire, was given a mastectomy six years ago, but delays mean she is still waiting.
She said the wait affects everything from the clothes she wears to the way she hugs people.
The Welsh government said some cancer services were taking longer to recover.
Ms Rogers said: "I know it's a lump of flesh and there are people going through far worse things."
"But I just want to look normal. It won't be a normal boob when I get it - it'll be lumpy and bumpy - but it will be mine. I'll be back to some sort of the old Karen."
Ms Rogers's surgery was already delayed several times before the three postponements in 2023.
After the mastectomy on her left breast in December 2016, reconstruction was deferred until after cancer treatment.
She then needed stomach surgery to rule out a specific growth, and once she recovered, the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
Prosthetic breasts can help women disguise the surgery they've had following a mastectomy, but don't always stay in position
The surgery, known as deep inferior epigastric perforator (DIEP), is only performed in one Welsh health board - Swansea Bay - and takes skin from the stomach to create a new breast.
Operations deferred by the Covid pandemic restarted last year.
But a planned nurses' strike, concerns over Ms Rogers's white blood cell count and another patient needing an immediate reconstruction has led to more waiting.
While she said priority must be given to cancer patients, she said she felt "cast aside".
She has worn a prosthetic for the past six and a half years, either stuck to her skin "like a big plaster" or placed in a pocket of special bras.
"I don't swim any more - I've got two little grandsons my daughter wants me to go swimming with, but I can't. I'm just too self-conscious."
Even her hugs are done from the right side, she said, because she does not want people to notice the "rock-solid" prosthetic on the left.
Jo Woolnough decided to pay for the second stage of her breast surgery rather than wait three to four years
Jo Woolnough, 44, from Swansea, waited four years for her breast construction, which she had in August 2022.
She said: "You try and get on with your life and you console yourself by thinking 'well I'm here, I'm lucky I survived' but after a while you can't hold on to that anymore because that lack of a breast affects you so strongly."
But the reconstruction left her with one side at a C-cup and the other at an F to an E-cup, leading her to feel self-conscious and stuffing "teddy-bear filling" in her bra.
She was then told it would be another three to four years for a reduction of her surviving breast so they would be the same size, which she described as "soul destroying".
"I was so elated from having the first surgery and thinking 'I'm nearly done, I'm nearly finished. I can see the end in sight'."
She decided to spend £8,000 to have the reduction privately, but after moving from a well-paid job to universal credit, this was a tough decision.
She said: "We need to close the door and move on - our family needs this."
Last year the Welsh government's women's health quality statement said health boards should ensure patients received care "as close as possible to home without significant waits".
As these specific, specialist operations are done by just one health board, cancer charity Macmillan said that service has to be adequately resourced.
"We are seeing these difficulties across Wales, and across the UK even, where there's not enough surgical space. There's not enough of the work force to do these massively important procedures," said Richard Pugh of Macmillan Wales.
Swansea Bay University Health Board said the plastic surgery team was working hard to reduce waiting lists, which grew significantly during the pandemic.
It added a new DIEP surgery service started at Singleton Hospital, Swansea, in September, which is unaffected by emergency patients, with additional surgery lists added in Morriston earlier this month, and on weekends when possible.
The Welsh government said: "We understand how difficult long waits for treatment can be. We are committed to improving health services for women and girls and to tackling many of the issues they themselves have identified as most important to them.
"We have sought to protect cancer services from the impact of the pandemic as far as possible but some parts of the pathway, like breast reconstruction, are taking longer to recover." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65770228 |
Joe Biden 'fine' after fall on stage in Colorado - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Officials say the 80-year-old president stumbled on a sandbag while handing out diplomas at a graduation ceremony in Colorado. | US & Canada | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
President Joe Biden is "fine" after tripping and falling over at an event in Colorado, White House officials say.
He stumbled on a sandbag while handing out diplomas at a graduation ceremony for the US Air Force Academy.
Mr Biden, who is the nation's oldest serving president at 80, was helped back onto his feet and appeared to be unhurt after Thursday's fall.
"I got sandbagged!" the president joked to reporters as he arrived back at the White House that evening.
He had been standing for about an hour and a half to shake hands with each of the 921 graduating cadets.
Footage shows Mr Biden appearing to point at one of two sandbags used to prop up his teleprompter as he was helped up by an Air Force official and two members of his Secret Service detail.
He was seen walking back to his seat unassisted and later jogging back to his motorcade when the ceremony ended.
"There was a sandbag on stage while he was shaking hands," White House communications director Ben LaBolt wrote on Twitter. "He's fine."
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Mr Biden had boarded the plane flashing "a big smile", although one reporter noted that he did not take questions before the flight.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Critics have said Mr Biden is too old to run for a second term as president.
Recent polls suggest a majority of US voters are concerned about his advanced age. He would be 82 at the start of a second term if he wins.
This fall, in addition to previous stumbles from his bicycle and on the way up the Air Force One stairs, could add to those concerns.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner to face Mr Biden in the 2024 White House election, reacted to the incident from a campaign event in Iowa, saying "the whole thing is crazy".
"I hope he wasn't hurt," said Mr Trump, 76, who has often poked fun at Mr Biden's age. "That's not inspiring."
"You got to be careful about that because you don't - you don't want that. Even if you have to tip toe down the ramp," added Mr Trump, apparently referring to his own careful walk off a stage that made headlines in 2020.
He said at the time that the ramp at the US Military Academy in West Point, New York, was slippery, and brushed aside the ensuing media questions about his own health as fake news.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, another 2024 contender for the Republican nomination, also reacted to the fall during a campaign event in New Hampshire: "We hope and wish Joe Biden a swift recovery from any injuries he may have sustained.
"But we also wish the United States of America a swift recovery from the injuries it has sustained because of Joe Biden and his policies."
Mr Biden's last physical examination took place in February.
White House physician Dr Kevin O'Connor wrote at the time: "The President remains fit for duty, and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations."
Dr O'Connor added that Mr Biden walks with a "stiffened gait", largely caused by wear and tear on his spine and nerve damage in his feet, but that his condition was unchanged from a previous physical in November 2021.
Mr Biden is hardly the first commander-in-chief to lose his footing in front of the cameras.
President Barack Obama tripped walking up stairs at a 2012 event, while President Gerald Ford fell down the stairs of Air Force One in 1975. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65783589 |
Low emission zone vehicle ban begins in Glasgow - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Owners of vehicles violating the new rules face fines mounting to hundreds of pounds per day. | Scotland business | Glasgow's low emission zone (LEZ) has come into force, banning many older vehicles from the centre of Scotland's biggest city.
Drivers of vehicles which do not meet emissions standards face fines mounting to hundreds of pounds per day.
A last-ditch legal challenge to the scheme was thrown out by a Court of Session judge on Wednesday.
Glasgow City Council's climate and transport convenor said the LEZ would ensure "cleaner, more breathable air".
Similar restrictions have been in place for buses since 2018.
The zone is bounded by the M8 motorway to the north and west, the River Clyde to the south, and the Saltmarket/High Street to the east.
Exemptions are available for blue badge holders, motorbikes, mopeds and emergency vehicles.
But in general petrol cars made before 2005 and diesels built before September 2014 will not be allowed in the zone.
However residents within the area have been granted an extra year to prepare.
The zone, which will operate 24 hours a day and all-year round, was conceived to tackle poor air quality, with many streets in Scotland regularly reaching harmful and illegal levels.
Before the Covid pandemic, concentrations of the pollutant nitrogen dioxide on Hope Street in Glasgow averaged 50% more than the safe legal limit.
But those numbers fell during the lockdown and when the most polluting buses and heavy goods vehicles were banned from the city centre in the first stage of the LEZ.
The scheme has been controversial, with some critics accusing the city council of not consulting effectively and pressing ahead with banning cars even after emissions fell in the initial stage of the LEZ.
A legal challenge brought by a vehicle repair company based in the Townhead area of Glasgow failed on Wednesday.
Patons Accident Repair Centre called for the scheme to be suspended ahead of further legal action.
It estimated that the 50-year-old firm would have to close within two years because it would lose a third of its business if it could no longer repair older vehicles.
Its workshop on Lister Street is about 500m (0.3 miles) inside the LEZ boundary, to the north of the city centre.
Homeless Project Scotland has learned its refrigerated van is not compliant with the new LEZ rules which come into force next week
Last month a charity providing food for homeless people in the city centre said its operations would be affected by the LEZ after it was refused an exemption by the city council to use its refrigerated van within the restricted area.
Homeless Project Scotland chairman Colin McInnes said he had assumed the charity's refrigerated van was compliant as it was registered in 2015, only to find out recently through Transport Scotland's LEZ vehicle checker that it was not.
Scottish Conservatives transport spokesman Graham Simpson said the SNP council in Glasgow had "not responded to the significant objections to the scheme raised by local businesses".
He added: "We all want to see a reduction in pollution and to meet environmental targets, but there is evidence that air quality is already meeting those standards, and that phase two will not result in further improvements."
Councillor Angus Millar, convener for climate and transport, said the bus-only phase of the scheme had seen a year-on-year improvement in the proportion of low or zero emission buses servicing the city centre.
But he warned: "We still have stubbornly high air pollution levels in the city centre, which have been in breach of legal limits for decades now, and that poor air quality is actively harming Glaswegians' health."
He also said up to 90% of vehicles currently entering the city centre would be unaffected.
Mr Millar added: "The LEZ standards will address the small minority of vehicles which pollute the most, disproportionately creating the harmful concentrations of air pollution.
"And by ensuring cleaner air, we can create a safer and more pleasant experience for everyone who lives, works and visits Glasgow city centre."
Net Zero Secretary Mairi McAllan said air pollution from vehicles disproportionally affected the most vulnerable.
She added: "It causes the most damage to the youngest, the oldest and people with pre-existing medical conditions.
"LEZs are an important tool in protecting public health and improving air quality - while at the same time protecting our environment by reducing harmful emissions and encouraging a shift to more sustainable transport."
Gareth Brown, who chairs Healthy Air Scotland, said one in five Scots would develop a lung condition like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in their lifetime.
He added: "Our cities must be redesigned to be far healthier places, where people can walk and cycle and not forced to breathe in toxic levels of air."
Scotland's four biggest cities all introduced LEZs last year - but Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh announced a two-year grace period until 2024.
The rules are not as strict as some other UK schemes, such as Oxford's zero emissions zone - where no petrol or diesel vehicles are allowed.
It raised almost £120,000 in fines in its first six months.
But while non-compliant vehicles will be banned in Scotland, Birmingham and London's ultra low emissions zones only require drivers to pay a fee.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-65764883 |
How worrying is debt ceiling for Americans on Social Security? - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Most Americans think a default is impossible, and few have planned for the potential economic chaos. | Business | The idea of a default is nearly inconceivable
The US faces dire warnings that a political stand-off over the debt ceiling could unleash unprecedented economic chaos. But few in the country, where nearly half the population relies on money from the government to help make ends meet, are making any backup plans.
In the base of a tower near the Brooklyn Bridge, half a dozen white-haired men and women assembled for their monthly book club.
The members are among the nearly 70 million Americans who receive monthly payments from Social Security, the government's assistance for pensioners and the disabled.
The programme pays out more than $115m (£92m) each month - about $1,700 on average per person - support that is at risk if President Joe Biden and Republican leader Kevin McCarthy cannot reach a deal before the US runs out of money to pay its bills.
Authorities have warned that moment could arrive in less than two weeks.
The seniors at Southbridge Towers said they were following the talks - and feel worried. But asked if they had taken any precautions in case the US defaults and their Social Security benefits do not arrive, the seniors seated around the plastic table responded with a sea of blank looks.
"That will never happen," declared 82-year-old Norman Manning. "It would be disastrous."
Mr Manning is hardly alone in betting that a deal allowing the US to borrow money will get done.
Financial markets also appear largely confident, despite some signs of anxiety among investors, including a drop in demand for some kinds of US debt.
Even after the lead Republican negotiator last week walked out of a closed-door meeting with White House representatives during talks aimed at avoiding a default, shares only flinched.
But Ian Bremmer, president of political consultancy the Eurasia Group, warned that even if both sides can agree to a deal, it will probably take significant wrangling before Republicans in Congress will vote for it - which could push the US into risky territory.
"This is going to get worse before it gets fixed," he said.
Without a deal, the White House has warned that if the government defaults, there would be severe disruption to government functions as well as pay for pensioners, government employees and members of the military. Financial markets are expected to go haywire.
Analysts say a prolonged stand-off could spark an economic downturn on the scale of the 2008 financial crisis, when millions of people lost their jobs and trillions of dollars in wealth was wiped out in financial markets.
A recent poll by Ipsos/Reuters found that three in four Americans fear personal financial fallout from such an event.
But dire predictions aside, no-one is exactly sure what would happen in a default - nor are government agencies providing many clues about if or how they are preparing.
When asked if it had alerted Social Security recipients about the risks, the Social Security Administration referred questions to the Treasury Department. The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did the Department of Health and Human Services, which administers food benefits for the poor and other programmes.
Unions representing government workers said their members had received no guidance about what staff should expect.
"I don't think the government itself knows quite what would happen," said Daniel Horowitz, deputy legislative director for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 750,000 federal and DC government workers. "It is the Titanic heading for the iceberg right now."
Max Richtman, president and chief executive of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said he was not surprised that the government would not want to unnecessarily alarm seniors if some kind of agreement to raise the debt ceiling is a foregone conclusion.
Arzu Deiker says she is worried about what could happen to her if the government defaults
But his organisation has still been trying to raise awareness among its millions of members and supporters about the potential risks.
"What we're telling our members is save some money, have a cushion in case things don't work out in the next couple of weeks," he said, noting that those on fixed incomes tend to have limited financial flexibility.
Robin Warshay, one of the book club members, said without her Social Security payment arriving on time, she would have to dip into savings.
She was also concerned about the ripple impact on businesses and the economy, should people's ability to spend suddenly freeze. But she said she remained "hopefully optimistic" talks in Washington would yield an agreement.
"If they want to get re-elected, they better make up," she said.
Even a deal could bring economic pain, depending on what it includes, analysts warn.
Republicans are seeking steep spending restrictions and changes to some benefits programmes.
While Mr Biden has rejected many of their proposals, he has also laid the ground for compromise, saying: "We're going to come together, because there's no alternative."
Arzu Deiker, a home health aide in New York who receives assistance from the government to buy groceries for herself and her three children, said she was worried about the threat to that support - whether it comes in the form of default or a deal.
"I'm scared," said the 29-year-old. "It would affect me a lot." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65627854 |
Church abuse victims risk new trauma over payout scheme - report - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A Church of England support scheme for abuse survivors risks re-traumatising victims, report finds. | UK | "It's hard to hear the criticisms… undoubtedly, we don't always hear well," says the Bishop of Birkenhead
A support scheme set up for Church of England abuse survivors risks re-traumatising victims, a report seen by the BBC has concluded.
One man's dealings with the scheme left him suicidal, says the report by the Church's Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB).
Other survivors told the BBC they have been treated with contempt.
The Church's lead on abuse engagement has apologised to victims who have had a "poor experience".
The Bishop of Birkenhead, Julie Conalty says "others have had positive experiences".
The Interim Support Scheme (ISS) was set up in August 2020 to support victims of abuse who are in urgent need of financial help.
Two months later, a landmark inquiry into child abuse within the Church of England concluded that compensation should be paid to victims and survivors. A full compensation scheme is yet to be created.
To use the ISS, a person must provide evidence that they are a survivor of Church abuse and in need of financial help. But some victims have told the BBC they have found it difficult, because they don't want to have to re-engage with the Church.
The Bishop of Birkenhead has told the BBC that the Church is "trying to get it right".
"It's hard to hear the criticisms… Undoubtedly, we don't always hear well," she said.
The Church says it has paid out £1.4m to 68 survivors.
When contacted by the BBC it said it did not want to comment specifically on the ISB report or the cases of any individuals accessing the scheme.
In its report, the safeguarding board looked at the experience of one individual - referred to as "Mr X" - who become suicidal as a result of the way his requests for support were handled by the scheme.
Mr X was abused as a child by individuals in the Church of England and this led to "substantial health and financial impacts", the report says.
It said the support scheme appeared to have been "set up in haste, underthought and under-resourced".
The Church "failed to grasp that a longer term, co-ordinated, intervention was required to help Mr X get back on his feet."
The authors warn of a lack of "effective central grip or oversight" and that if survivors' needs were not properly managed it could result in "repeated re-traumatisation".
Sophie Whiting says she had her support payments stopped without notice or explanation
Trying to get help from the scheme has taken its toll on other victims the BBC has spoken to.
"It's regular engagement. It's hundreds and hundreds of hours of work and time and effort," says Sophie Whiting, 55, who was abused by a member of the clergy as a child.
She says after a year of financial support, her payments were stopped with no explanation and there isn't a person she can contact for help.
"All I was met with was closed doors and passed from pillar to post," says Ms Whiting.
"I've written to numerous people within the Church of England to protest, because they had agreed that I was in financial need, and because I am now in greater financial need.
"I'm sick of having these kinds of conversations, and all this drama and trauma and upset and having my friends and family knowing about it."
Abuse victim Teresa Cooper was threatened with possible legal action
Teresa Cooper, 55, was sent a letter by a church administrator which threatened her with possible legal action in December last year, after she had posted about her bad experiences of the scheme on social media.
"I ended up in hospital about three weeks later, I was so distressed," she says.
She says it takes a long time to get support from the scheme and some payments have been revoked with no explanation.
Her applications for help with an electric wheelchair were rejected, along with one to cover a carer's allowance.
Ms Cooper was abused in a Church of England-run residential home in Gravesend, Kent. Medical reviews have found that her health has been permanently damaged by drugs she was given there.
"This medical condition was forced on me through no fault of my own. The least they could have done was look after me," Ms Cooper says. "They are supposed to be Christians, they are supposed to be caring."
The Church recently apologised for having criticised abuse survivors for "horrific abuse and bullying" towards Church staff.
Bishop Conalty has told the BBC it was a misjudgement that had served as a distraction from the "main issue".
"I think survivors understandably felt that through the comments that were made that the blame was being placed on them."
Bishop Conalty said she was unable to comment on individual cases. She admitted to the difficulties of survivors having to prove to the Church that they need help, but said it could not be avoided.
"As a scheme that's set up in order to meet need, there has to be some evidence of the need, and some evidence of how the money is spent," she says.
The survivors the BBC have spoken to have said they are desperate to have their final compensation claims settled, so they no longer have to deal with the Church of England. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65768746 |
Bournemouth beach death swimmers not hit by boat or jet ski - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Police in Bournemouth release more details about the "devastating" deaths of a boy and girl. | Dorset | The beach was cleared, along with the nearby Pier Approach, and a cordon set up
A 12-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy who died after being pulled from the sea off Bournemouth beach were not hit by any vessels, police have said.
Officers released more information regarding what happened on Wednesday when 10 swimmers got into difficulty.
A man in his 40s arrested on suspicion of manslaughter has been released under investigation.
Dorset Police said there was no contact with a jet ski or boat and no-one jumped from the pier.
The force stressed investigations were still in the early stages and it was only releasing certain details to address speculation. What exactly happened is still unclear.
Officers said members of the public rushed to help the 10 swimmers struggling in the water.
The girl and boy, from Buckinghamshire and Southampton respectively, sustained critical injuries and died later in hospital.
Police said they were from separate groups visiting the beach and the arrested man was not known to them.
The eight other people were rescued and treated on the beach.
Police confirmed on Thursday the arrested man was "on the water" at the time of the incident.
In a statement Dorset Police said: "Following initial enquiries, a man aged in his 40s who was on the water at the time was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. He has now been released under investigation while enquiries continue."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police said pier jumping had been ruled out as a cause of the tragedy
Emergency services were called to the beach off Bournemouth Pier, which was packed with people on half-term holidays, at 16:32 BST.
In an earlier statement, Dorset Police said: "Early investigation indicates that there was no physical contact between a vessel and any swimmers at the time of the incident."
Speaking during a later press conference, Assistant Chief Constable Rachel Farrell thanked members of the public who helped people in trouble in the water, as well as beachgoers who "quickly moved and let the emergency services do their jobs".
Dr Rob Rosa was on the beach and helped emergency service crews trying to resuscitate the 12-year-old girl.
In a post on social media, he said: "Many of the lifeguards on the beach were teenagers themselves and despite their training would not have encountered such a scene, let alone having to resuscitate two children simultaneously whilst actively searching for others in a crowded sea.
"These young lifeguards did everything asked of them, they didn't panic, there was no hysteria, they were exceptional and they followed instruction to the letter whilst taking their own initiative."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Two students described seeing emergency services descend on the seafront on Wednesday
Air ambulances landed on the beach, while a lifeguard attended on a jet ski in a bid to rescue those who were in the water.
The coastguard also conducted a search to make sure no other people were missing and said it was "satisfied there are not".
A section of the beach and the nearby Pier Approach were cleared and a cordon was put in place.
The RNLI is now offering support to the lifeguards who were on the scene.
The beach was cleared along with nearby Pier Approach in Bournemouth
Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative MP for Bournemouth East, said protocols on the pier could be reviewed after the "terrible tragedy".
He said Bournemouth prided itself on being a family resort and the incident had taken "everybody by shock".
Leader of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, Vikki Slade, told members of the press making sure the beach is safe would be a "top priority" for the authority.
She said extra staff would be on at the scene this weekend and lifeboat support from the RNLI would be visible.
When asked about the protocols in place for water safety, she said the team "is always looking at these issues, but today isn't the day for that".
Dorset Police is appealing for witnesses to come forward and has said further information will be released "as the investigation progresses".
The Marine Accident Investigation Branch and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency are also involved in the investigation.
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Debt ceiling deal: US House overwhelmingly passes bill - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The Senate must approve the deal and send it to the president's desk this weekend to avoid a default. | US & Canada | A deal allowing the US to borrow more money has moved closer to becoming law, days before the world's biggest economy is due to start defaulting on its debt.
The measure easily passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 314-117, despite defections on both sides.
The Senate is now meeting ahead of a vote, which the bill needs to pass before it can be signed into law by President Joe Biden.
The government is forecast to hit its borrowing limit on Monday 5 June.
That has left little margin for error as lawmakers race to avoid the US defaulting on its $31.4tn (£25tn) debt, which underpins the global financial system.
A default would mean the government could not borrow any more money or pay all of its bills. It would also threaten to wreak havoc on the global economy, affecting prices and mortgage rates in other countries.
On Wednesday evening, 165 Democrats joined 149 Republicans in approving the 99-page bill to raise the debt ceiling, allowing it to pass the House by the required simple majority.
With Republicans in control of the lower chamber of Congress and Democrats holding sway in the upper chamber and White House, a deal had proven elusive for weeks until Mr Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy inked a bipartisan compromise over the weekend.
In a statement, Mr Biden thanked the speaker, saying he had negotiated in good faith.
"Neither side got everything it wanted," said the president. "That's the responsibility of governing."
Kevin McCarthy was able to push Joe Biden and reluctant Democrats to the negotiating table by passing a bill that raised the debt limit but included a laundry list of conservative priorities.
Then he was able to hold his party together as he struck a less ambitious deal with the president that modestly trimmed the growth in federal spending and added some new conditions on aid for low-income Americans.
That was not enough for a group of hard-line conservatives, some of whom hinted they would unseat Mr McCarthy and force a new election for Speaker.
But by Wednesday, even the hottest of firebrands were backing away from their rhetoric. And when it came time to vote, a majority of Republicans approved Mr McCarthy's deal.
While the hard-liners may grumble, it is clear they do not have anywhere near the level of support they would need to replace Mr McCarthy - or even any idea who to replace him with.
The agreement suspends the debt ceiling, the spending limit set by Congress which determines how much money the government can borrow, until 1 January 2025.
The legislation would result in $1.5tn in savings over a decade, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday.
But the bill's passage had been in jeopardy after lawmakers from both parties voiced opposition.
Ultra-conservative Republicans complained they had secured too few concessions in exchange for raising the debt limit.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The debt ceiling explained - in under 90 seconds
Democrats objected to provisions raising work requirements for Americans on federal food aid, and restarting student loan repayments.
Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat, said he would vote for the bill, even though he viewed it as the "second serving of Satan's sandwiches".
The leader of the House Democrats, Hakeem Jeffries, said his party had politically bailed out the Republican speaker.
"Once again, House Democrats to the rescue to avoid a dangerous default," said the New York congressman.
Eli Crane, an Arizona Republican who had vowed to stop the bill, tweeted: "More Democrats voted for this 'historic conservative victory' than Republicans.
Chip Roy of Texas vowed a reckoning over the bill
Republicans control the House by a narrow 222-213 majority, but Mr McCarthy was able to push the bill over the line with support from political centrists on both sides of the aisle.
He framed the package as "the biggest cut and savings this Congress has ever voted for".
The bill is not yet assured of passage. It now heads to the Senate, where some combination of Democratic and Republican votes may again be needed.
One conservative Republican, Mike Lee of Utah, has already threatened to use "every procedural tool" to stall consideration of the deal.
Left-wing Senator Bernie Sanders also came out against the bill on Wednesday, saying he cannot "in good conscience" support it - but he told CNN he would not delay its passage.
Both Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate are working to ensure that a bill reaches Mr Biden's desk for his signature this weekend before a default can occur.
The last time the US came this close to overshooting its debt ceiling, in 2011, the credit agency Standard & Poor's downgraded the country's rating, a move that has yet to be reversed.
Before Wednesday's vote, US stock markets ended the day down a little, with the Dow closing 0.4% lower, while the S&P and Nasdaq both dipped by 0.6%.
With Nomia Iqbal and Jessica Parker reporting from Capitol Hill | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65771669 |
Phillip Schofield: What next for Holly Willoughby, ITV and This Morning? - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Phillip Schofield left his role on the daytime show after admitting an affair with a colleague. | Entertainment & Arts | Holly Willoughby is set to return to This Morning on Monday 5 June, two weeks after Schofield's exit
Pressure on ITV is increasing after several stars raised questions about what it knew of Phillip Schofield's relationship with a younger male colleague.
The former This Morning host left the show last week following reports of a rift with co-star Holly Willoughby.
Willoughby was reportedly upset that Schofield had not told her his brother Timothy was facing charges of sexually abusing a boy, something he was ultimately convicted of earlier this year.
Days after Schofield exited This Morning he confirmed he had an affair with a young male colleague while still married to his wife, and apologised for lying about it to those around him.
The 61-year-old's relationship has dominated headlines in recent days, but it has also prompted criticism about the working environment on the show.
Dr Ranj Singh, This Morning's former resident doctor, tweeted on Sunday: "I didn't know the truth about what was going on with Phillip, but I do know the issues with This Morning go far beyond him. The culture at This Morning had become toxic, no longer aligned with ITV's values."
In response, an ITV spokesman said: "We are sorry to read Dr Ranj's post. At ITV we are fully committed to providing every opportunity for anyone who works with us to raise any concern or comments they may have.
"Following a complaint made by Dr Ranj, we appointed an external and independent advisor to carry out a review. This external review found no evidence of bullying or discrimination."
This isn't the first time a light-hearted daytime show has been accused of a difficult culture behind the scenes - it was one of the factors which led to the end of The Ellen DeGeneres Show in the US.
But how did it come to this? A story which started life two weeks ago following an apparent feud between Schofield and his co-star Holly Willoughby has turned into a crisis for ITV.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Phillip Schofield spoke to the BBC's Amol Rajan about his affair
The man who would become Schofield's lover was a teenager when they first met, although the relationship did not start until he was over 18 and working alongside the presenter on This Morning.
The pair met when the boy attended a talk Schofield gave at a school - and his connection to the star would ultimately lead to him being hired by ITV three years later.
Some might say it is unfair that someone could land a job in the media industry because they happened to come into contact with a successful figure.
The truth is that kind of thing happens frequently in the entertainment world. But this case may prompt questions about whether more safeguards should be put in place for young employees.
Speaking to the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, former culture secretary Nadine Dorries said: "How did that young boy get a job at ITV - what were the processes that were involved and what were the safeguarding processes that were in place for someone who was so young?"
Former culture secretary Nadine Dorries questioned whether safeguarding processes were put in place by ITV
Rumours continued to swirl about the nature of the pair's relationship for several years. Schofield came out as gay live on air in February 2020. By then, the man had moved programmes and was working on another ITV show.
ITV say the affair was "categorically denied" by both parties during a 2020 investigation, and no evidence beyond "hearsay and rumour" was found.
A major TV network cannot fire someone based on rumour and suspicion alone, especially a high-profile presenter whose sudden and unexplained departure would invite a media circus to their doorstep.
Nonetheless, Dan Wootton and Eamonn Holmes were among the former ITV stars who maintained that network's bosses had questions to answer about what they knew and when.
Wootton claims he was one of the ITV employees who had urged bosses to investigate rumours of a relationship in 2019.
At the time, he also worked for the Sun and was keen to write something about what was happening, but he said he was only able to write "a pale imitation of the real story" due to legal constraints.
Former This Morning star Dr Ranj claimed the wider culture on the programme was "toxic"
Following Schofield's high-profile exit, many are questioning whether or not Willoughby can remain on the programme, assuming she wants to. She is a hugely popular presenter who will not be short of offers from other broadcasters.
Willoughby reportedly has no plans to leave but the drama surrounding Schofield and This Morning is such that it is hard to imagine how she'll be able to present the programme as normal when she returns on 5 June.
She has already distanced herself from her former co-star and friend, commenting it was "very hurtful" to find Schofield had lied about the relationship.
In the long-term, it's perfectly possible she could be able to build a relationship with a new co-presenter such as Alison Hammond. But Willoughby was so heavily associated with Schofield on This Morning it could be tricky for her to escape from under his cloud.
Alison Hammond (pictured with Schofield in July 2022) is the favourite to replace him on This Morning
Others are asking whether Schofield's career can survive away from ITV. Comebacks are common in the media industry and it's worth reiterating that he hasn't done anything illegal.
While it's unlikely he will ever reclaim his throne as the king of daytime, there are plenty of other radio stations and TV networks who might give him a lower-profile show after he's had a period of laying low.
As for the programme itself, there is a good chance it will survive. A huge number of staff work on This Morning beyond the presenters, including production staff, camera operators and regular guests.
Cancelling the show would leave a huge gap in ITV's daytime schedule and viewers could easily drift off to other channels and never come back if the show went off air, even temporarily. ITV will want to avoid this at all costs.
ITV said in a statement: "This Morning is not under review and there's no plans for the show to be axed."
Willoughby has no plans to leave This Morning following Schofield's exit, according to reports
A rebrand of the show, which retains a lot of the staff and essence of This Morning but with a different title and colour scheme, might be a credible option if it is felt the show cannot continue.
When GMTV finished in 2010, its troubled replacement Daybreak struggled for four years before being replaced by the far more successful Good Morning Britain.
For now, photos of Schofield have reportedly been removed from the This Morning set, and advertisers will be watching closely to see how the show weathers the storm.
Three years after chef John Torode's tea towel caught fire live on air while he attempted the perfect breakfast muffin recipe, ITV is being forced to put out a few fires of its own. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65738931 |
Debt ceiling live updates: Congress approves deal, averting a US default - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | President Joe Biden will now sign the measure into law, staving off worldwide economic chaos. | US & Canada | It’s been a long evening. The repeated roll-calls of senators, to go through amendments, has given the impression of a slow pace.
But of course this legislation’s actually been expedited through the Senate due to Monday’s deadline.
That’s when the US Treasury says the country could run out of money to pay all its bills.
So this is, in relative terms, speedy stuff.
But watching these apparently calm proceedings unfold is somewhat at odds with the frantic political drama that’s played out in recent weeks.
It did seem, at points, as though a deal could prove elusive between senior Republicans and the White House.
But, as is often the way with political deals, an 11th-hour agreement was struck. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-65676379 |
Jerusalem Sbarro pizza bombing victim dies after 22 years in coma - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Chana Nachenberg, a US-Israeli citizen, was 31 at the time of the deadly attack on a pizzeria. | Middle East | Chana Nachenberg was one of 16 people killed in the bombing
A US-Israeli woman has died after 22 years in a coma from injuries suffered in a Palestinian suicide bombing at a pizza restaurant in Jerusalem.
Chana Nachenberg was 31 at the time of the attack at the Sbarro pizzeria, which killed 15 other people, including seven children and a pregnant woman.
She is the third US national to die as a result of the bombing in August 2001.
The US is seeking the extradition from Jordan of a woman convicted by Israel of murder for her role in the attack.
Ahlam Tamimi, a Jordanian citizen who lived in the occupied West Bank at the time, was given 16 life sentences by an Israeli court in 2003. She was released in 2011 as part of a deal to free an Israeli soldier held captive for more than five years by Palestinian Hamas militants in Gaza.
Tamimi helped the bomber, Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri, carry out the attack. She returned to Jordan after her release, and has spoken about her pride at her involvement in the atrocity.
Tamimi is on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list and the US says it is seeking her extradition on charges of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against Americans. Jordan's High Court has rejected a previous request.
The parents of one of the two other US citizens killed in the attack - Malki Roth, who was 15 at the time - have campaigned for years for the US to do more to effect Tamimi's extradition.
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The Sbarro restaurant, at a busy intersection in the centre of west Jerusalem, was packed with customers when Tamimi and Masri, both Hamas members, entered on 9 August. Tamimi, who chose the target, left before Masri blew himself up. In addition to those killed, about 130 people were injured.
It was one of multiple suicide bombings by Hamas during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israel, which began the previous year and tailed off in 2005. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-65754102 |
England Women's World Cup squad: Beth Mead left out, Beth England in - BBC Sport | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | null | Euro 2022 top scorer Beth Mead is not included in England's Women's World Cup squad, having not recovered from an anterior cruciate ligament injury. | null | Last updated on .From the section Women's Football
Euro 2022 top scorer Beth Mead is not included in England's Women's World Cup squad, having not fully recovered from an anterior cruciate ligament injury.
The Arsenal forward, 27, has not played since November and was a major doubt.
Tottenham striker Beth England, who has not been involved since last summer, is included having scored 12 goals in her past 12 Women's Super League games.
Chelsea centre-back Millie Bright, who has been out with a knee injury since March, has made the 23-player squad.
England head coach Sarina Wiegman confirmed Bright would captain the team in the absence of injured defender Leah Williamson.
Midfielder Fran Kirby was also already ruled out through injury, but Barcelona defender Lucy Bronze is in despite having knee surgery in April.
Wiegman said she did not ever think there was a chance Mead would be fit in time for the tournament in Australia and New Zealand.
"She's so positive and going well, but the timescale she had we would have taken so many risks to get to the World Cup," said Wiegman.
"I'm not willing to take that risk to push her too much and she gets injured again. We need to take care of players."
There is no place for Manchester United forward Nikita Parris or defender Maya le Tissier, but Le Tissier has been placed on standby, alongside uncapped goalkeeper Emily Ramsey and forward Jess Park.
Manchester City defender Steph Houghton, who captained England for eight years, has not been called up despite injuries in defence leading to some calls for her return.
Midfielder Laura Coombs is one of six players in the squad who will be going to their first major tournament, along with Chelsea pair Lauren James and Niamh Charles, Manchester City's Esme Morgan, Manchester United's Katie Zelem and Brighton's Katie Robinson.
England play Haiti in their opening match on 22 July in Australia.
Wiegman said her decision to leave out Le Tissier, 21, was one of the hardest to make because of competition in defensive positions, where there is lots of versatility.
She has just two caps for England but has impressed at centre-back for United this season.
Le Tissier, Ramsey and Park will train with the squad at St George's Park in June. Goalkeeper Ramsey will leave the group prior to departure for Australia.
"Of course [Le Tissier] was really close," said Wiegman. "That was a hard call. With all the defenders we had to think about it.
"She just didn't get there. She has had a very good season at Manchester United."
While there was bitter disappointment for Le Tissier, England received her first call up for a year and was rewarded for her goalscoring form since making the January switch from Chelsea.
"She is selected because of her performances. She was at Chelsea and didn't build that much credit because we hardly saw her play," said Wiegman.
"But then she made a move, and how she did, performed and the resilience she showed made us make the decision to get her in the squad."
'Bright will be fine as captain'
Aside from selection, another talking point was who would take over the captaincy from Williamson in her injury absence.
Bright was named vice-captain for Euro 2022 and Wiegman confirmed she will wear the armband in Australia.
"I haven't told her she would be the captain, that's how we've been all the time," said Wiegman.
"Where she is at right now in her rehab, we haven't really spoken about it yet. She will be fine, she has done it before."
Another question was whether Aston Villa forward Rachel Daly, who was the WSL's Player of the Season and top goalscorer, would play up front in the tournament having started every game at left-back at Euro 2022.
"Yes, she can, like some other players. She has had a very good season and done really well," said Wiegman.
"She has played for us as a number nine and at the back. Her versatility helps the team."
Wiegman's decision to name 23 players is also different from last summer's home Euros, where she had a longlist of 28 names initially.
"It has to do with the timescale and going to the other side of the world," said Wiegman.
"While we were in England we could have training all the time and give clarity. Now we have a holiday then go quickly to Australia. So we wanted to have clarity on that." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65761103 |
AI: War crimes evidence erased by social media platforms - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Footage of potential human rights abuses may be lost after platforms delete it, the BBC has found. | Technology | Evidence of potential human rights abuses may be lost after being deleted by tech companies, the BBC has found.
Platforms remove graphic videos, often using artificial intelligence - but footage that may help prosecutions can be taken down without being archived.
Meta and YouTube say they aim to balance their duties to bear witness and protect users from harmful content.
But Alan Rusbridger, who sits on Meta's Oversight Board, says the industry has been "overcautious" in its moderation.
The platforms say they do have exemptions for graphic material when it is in the public interest - but when the BBC attempted to upload footage documenting attacks on civilians in Ukraine, it was swiftly deleted.
Artificial intelligence (AI) can remove harmful and illegal content at scale. When it comes to moderating violent images from wars, however, machines lack the nuance to identify human rights violations.
Ihor Zakharenko, a former travel journalist, encountered this in Ukraine. Since the Russian invasion he has been documenting attacks on civilians.
The BBC met him in a suburb of Kyiv where one year ago men, women and children had been shot dead by Russian troops while trying to flee occupation.
He filmed the bodies - at least 17 of them - and burnt-out cars.
He wanted to post the videos online so the world would see what happened and to counter the Kremlin's narrative. But when he uploaded them to Facebook and Instagram they were swiftly taken down.
"Russians themselves were saying those were fakes, [that] they didn't touch civilians, they fought only with the Ukrainian army," Ihor said.
We uploaded Ihor's footage on to Instagram and YouTube using dummy accounts.
Instagram took down three of the four videos within a minute.
At first, YouTube applied age restrictions to the same three, but 10 minutes later removed them all.
Videos documenting Russian attacks on civilians were taken down within minutes
We tried again - but they failed to upload altogether. An appeal to restore the videos on the basis that they included evidence of war crimes was rejected.
Key figures within the industry say there is an urgent need for social media companies to prevent this kind of information from vanishing.
"You can see why they have developed and train their machines to, the moment they see something that looks difficult or traumatic, to take it down," Mr Rusbridger told the BBC. The Meta Oversight Board that he sits on was set up by Mark Zuckerberg and is known as a kind of independent "supreme court" for the company, which owns Facebook and Instagram.
"I think the next question for them is how do we develop the machinery, whether that's human or AI, to then make more reasonable decisions," Mr Rusbridger, a former editor-in-chief of the Guardian, adds.
No-one would deny tech firms' right to police content, says US Ambassador for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaak: "I think where the concern happens is when that information suddenly disappears."
Atrocities from war are being documented on social media. This material can be used as evidence to help prosecute war crimes. But the BBC has spoken to people affected by violent conflict who have seen the major social media companies take down this content.
YouTube and Meta say that under their exemptions for graphic war footage in the public interest, content that would normally be removed can be kept online with viewing restricted to adults. But our experiment with Ihor's videos suggest otherwise.
Meta says it responds "to valid legal requests from law enforcement agencies around the world" and "we continue to explore additional avenues to support international accountability processes… consistent with our legal and privacy obligations".
YouTube says that while it has exemptions for graphic content in the public interest, the platform is not an archive. It says, "Human rights organisations; activists, human rights defenders, researchers, citizen journalists and others documenting human rights abuses (or other potential crimes) should observe best practices for securing and preserving their content."
The BBC also spoke to Imad, who owned a pharmacy in Aleppo, Syria, until a Syrian government barrel bomb landed nearby in 2013.
He recalls how the blast filled the room with dust and smoke. Hearing cries for help, he went to the market outside and saw hands, legs and dead bodies covered in blood.
Local TV crews captured these scenes. The footage was posted on YouTube and Facebook but has subsequently been taken down.
In the mayhem of the conflict, Syrian journalists told the BBC their own recordings of the original footage were also destroyed in bombing raids.
Years later, when Imad was applying for asylum in the EU, he was asked to provide documents that proved he was at the scene.
"I was sure that my pharmacy was captured on camera. But when I went online, it was taking me to a deleted video."
In response to this sort of incident, organisations like Mnemonic, a Berlin-based human rights organisation, have stepped in to archive footage before it disappears.
Mnemonic developed a tool to automatically download and save evidence of human rights violations - first in Syria and now in Yemen, Sudan and Ukraine.
They have saved more than 700,000 images from war zones before they were removed from social media, including three videos showing the attack near Imad's pharmacy.
Each image might hold a key clue to uncover what really transpired on the battlefield - the location, the date or the perpetrator.
But organisations like Mnemonic cannot cover every area of conflict around the world.
Proving that war crimes have been committed is incredibly hard - so getting as many sources as possible is vital.
"Verification is like solving a puzzle - you put together seemingly unrelated pieces of information to build a bigger picture of what happened," says BBC Verify's Olga Robinson.
The task of archiving open-source material - available to pretty much anyone on social media - often falls to people with a mission to help their relatives caught up in violent conflict.
Rahwa says it is her "duty" to archive open-source material from the conflict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia
Rahwa lives in the United States and has family in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, which has been wracked with violence in recent years, and where the authorities in Ethiopia tightly control the flow of information.
However, social media means there is a visual record of a conflict that might otherwise remain hidden from the outside world.
"It was our duty," says Rahwa. "I spent hours doing research, and so when you're seeing this content trickle in you're trying to verify using all the open-source intelligence tools you can get your hands on, but you don't know if your family is OK."
Human rights campaigners say there is an urgent need for a formal system to gather and safely store deleted content. This would include preserving metadata to help verify the content and prove it hasn't been tampered with.
Ms Van Schaak, the US Ambassador for Global Criminal Justice, says: "We need to create a mechanism whereby that information can be preserved for potential future accountability exercises. Social media platforms should be willing to make arrangements with accountability mechanisms around the world."
Read more about BBC Verify: Explaining the 'how' - the launch of BBC Verify | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-65755517 |
Anthony Taylor: PGMOL condemns abuse directed at Europa League final referee - BBC Sport | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | null | Referees' body PGMOL says it is appalled by the abuse directed at Anthony Taylor by supporters at Budapest Airport after the Europa League final. | null | Last updated on .From the section European Football
Referees' body PGMOL says it is appalled by the "unjustified and abhorrent" abuse directed at Anthony Taylor in Budapest Airport following Wednesday's Europa League final.
The Englishman had officiated the game, where Sevilla beat Roma on penalties after a 1-1 draw.
Taylor and his family were then shouted at by angry fans at the airport.
Budapest airport officials said an Italian citizen involved in the incident had been charged with affray.
In the video, which has been shared on social media, Taylor and his family are accosted by fans as they are escorted through the airport. Scuffles then break out as they disappear through a secure door and a chair is thrown.
Following the game, Roma manager Jose Mourinho was seen in a car park confronting Taylor with a foul-mouthed rant.
A Budapest Airport statement read: "Fans of the losing Roma team recognised the referee in the food court of the airport, where he was waiting for his flight to depart.
"Thanks to the airport operator's close co-operation with the police and the increased police presence at the airport during the arrival and departure of the fans, the authorities intervened immediately, and the referee was escorted to a lounge and boarded his flight safely, accompanied by police officers.
"The Italian citizen involved in the incident was apprehended by the police and criminal proceedings have been initiated on charges of affray."
PGMOL said in a statement: "[We are] aware of videos circulating on social media showing Anthony Taylor and his family being harassed and abused at Budapest Airport.
"We are appalled at the unjustified and abhorrent abuse directed at Anthony and his family as he tries to make his way home from refereeing the Uefa Europa League final.
"We will continue to provide our full support to Anthony and his family."
The Premier League said it was "shocked and appalled by the unacceptable abuse" directed at Taylor and his family.
A Premier League spokesperson added: "No-one should have to suffer the inexcusable behaviour they had to endure.
"Anthony is one of our most experienced and accomplished match officials and we fully support him and his family."
West Ham manager David Moyes, whose side play Fiorentina in the Europa Conference League final on Wednesday, said: "All referees have a really difficult job and shouldn't be put through any difficult situations. That's not correct."
Uefa is waiting for reports from match officials and delegates before deciding whether to take action against Mourinho over the incident in the car park under the stadium after the match.
Mourinho criticised Taylor in his news conference and he was later captured ranting and making pointed comments as Taylor and officials were boarding a minibus.
The Portuguese repeatedly swore and twice shouted about a "disgrace" before talking in Italian.
Uefa's chief refereeing officer Roberto Rosetti attempted to calm the situation down.
Mourinho was booked during an ill-tempered game, with Taylor repeatedly called to the benches to take action as fourth official Michael Oliver struggled to keep control.
Taylor issued yellow cards to 13 players, the most bookings in a Europa League game. Seven of them were to Roma players, a record for a final.
Delays and injuries saw more than 25 minutes of injury time played across the four halves of the game, which went to extra time and then a shootout.
'Mourinho should be banned for 10 games'
Former Premier League referee Keith Hackett called on Uefa to give Mourinho a 10-game ban and take tougher action against clubs.
"What is appalling here is that a referee has gone out and done his job," Hackett told BBC Radio 5 Live. "It is a prestigious game for him - for an English referee to be appointed to the final.
"He was looking forward to that. He spent years of refereeing to get to the level he is at. He is a world-class referee. He delivers a very difficult game without much contention and then he is faced with this particular problem as he is in the airport.
"It is unprecedented and Uefa have got to take action.
"The sanction for Mourinho? They have got to come down with a 10-game ban.
"They have also got to ban the teams from Europe. They have got to be tough; throw them out of the competition."
Hackett said Uefa must take "responsibility for the security of match officials right up to the time that they leave the airport". | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65776488 |
Argentina allows morning-after pill to be bought over counter - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The health ministry says making the pill more easily available "removes an important barrier". | Latin America & Caribbean | Women in Argentina will no longer require a prescription to get emergency contraception.
The government said making the morning-after pill more easily available removed an "important barrier" for those seeking to prevent pregnancy.
The move was welcomed by feminist groups, who see it as a sign of progress in the Catholic-majority country.
However pro-life campaigners said it sends out the wrong message.
Argentina's health ministry said the measure would help avoid unintentional pregnancies by overcoming "difficulties of access to health services, contraception supplies, and education" faced by some.
"This removes an important barrier to access," Valeria Isla, director of sexual and reproductive health at the ministry, told Reuters news agency.
"People can have this method of contraception as support before an emergency happens."
Vanessa Gagliardi, leader of the feminist group Juntas y a la Izquierda, said the move would help "de-stigmatise" the morning-after pill in a country where seven out of 10 adolescent pregnancies were unplanned, according to official data.
Argentine pro-life group DerguiXlaVida called the measure worrying, accusing the government of "essentially orienting itself towards promoting abortive measures".
It said the move was recognition of the "failure of pregnancy prevention [and] sex education".
It is the latest sign of progress on reproductive rights in Argentina, one of the largest and most influential countries in Latin America, a region where the Catholic Church remains powerful.
In 2020, the country legalised abortions up to the 14th week of pregnancy, a move opposed by the Church, which had called on senators to reject the bill.
Terminations had previously only been allowed in cases of rape or when the mother's health was at risk.
Emergency contraception pills - commonly known as morning-after pills - taken within 120 hours of unprotected sex prevent pregnancy by blocking the fertilisation of the egg, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), although it is more effective within 12 hours.
Emergency contraception - including emergency contraceptive pills and copper-bearing intrauterine devices - can prevent about 95% of pregnancies when taken within five days of intercourse, the WHO says.
• None 'The nurses wanted me to feel guilty about my abortion’ | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-65772878 |
Phillip Schofield: ITV announces external review of how it handled affair - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A barrister is leading a review into how ITV handled the affair between Schofield and his colleague. | Entertainment & Arts | Phillip Schofield left ITV last week, after he admitted lying about an affair with a young male colleague
ITV has asked a barrister to lead a review into its handling of a relationship between Phillip Schofield and his colleague.
The review was confirmed by chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall in a letter seen by the PA news agency.
The former This Morning presenter left the network last week after he admitted lying about the affair.
ITV previously said it had investigated in 2020, but that both parties repeatedly denied the relationship.
The network has now instructed a barrister to carry out an external review to "establish the facts".
Jane Mulcahy KC "will review our records and talk to people involved", Dame Carolyn said in the letter.
Schofield, 61, resigned from ITV on Friday and was dropped by his talent agency YMU after admitting to an "unwise but not illegal" affair with a younger male ITV employee.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Phillip Schofield spoke to the BBC's Amol Rajan about his affair
The letter from Dame Carolyn reads: "This work will also consider our relevant processes and policies and whether we need to change or strengthen any.
"Given Phillip's admission of the extent of his deception the work will extend to cover any related issues that may emerge. This work will be carried out as quickly as possible and we will be happy to share the outcome."
The letter was addressed to Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee chair Dame Caroline Dinenage, and Ofcom chief executive Dame Melanie Dawes.
The letter mentions the "significant media coverage concerning Phillip Schofield" and adds: "As you would expect we take the matter extremely seriously and have reviewed our own records over the weekend."
The broadcast network reiterated that it investigated rumours of a relationship in 2020, but "did not find any evidence of a relationship beyond hearsay and rumour".
Phillip Schofield presented This Morning opposite Holly Willoughby until his exit last week
"Given the ongoing rumours, we continued to ask questions of both parties, who both continued to deny the rumours, including as recently as this month," the letter added.
Dame Carolyn said there had been "a lot of inaccuracy" in reporting, adding the former employee Schofield admitted to an affair with had been offered support by the broadcaster.
She said: "The ITV employee was aged 19 when he first did work experience at This Morning... and 20 years old when he applied and succeeded in securing a job as a runner on the show."
"As you would imagine given the social media scrutiny of him, we have offered him our support throughout this period and indeed are still doing so," the letter continued.
ITV bosses, including Dame Carolyn, are set to face MPs on the Commons DCMS Committee on Tuesday to discuss reforms to the laws governing public broadcasting, and Dame Carolyn has also been asked to face questions from MPs at a session of the committee on 14 June.
MP John Nicolson, a former BBC journalist who sits on the committee and is also the SNP's culture spokesman, said on Twitter that recent events at ITV were a "cause for concern" and that he was looking forward to "getting some answers" from ITV bosses.
Schofield was dropped as an ambassador for the Prince's Trust earlier this week
Schofield left his role on This Morning following reports of a rift with his co-star Holly Willoughby.
Days later, he confirmed he had had a relationship with a younger male employee, which took place while Schofield was still married to his wife Stephanie Lowe.
Schofield apologised for lying to his colleagues, the media and his friends and family about the affair, and left ITV with immediate effect.
Earlier this week, the Prince's Trust announced it was dropping Schofield as an ambassador following the controversy.
The charity, founded by the King, said it was "no longer appropriate" for it to work with the presenter.
Schofield's exit from ITV means he will no longer present the British Soap Awards this weekend. They will now be hosted by singer and presenter Jane McDonald.
He will also not front a new prime-time series which the network said last week they were developing with him.
Dr Ranj Singh, who used to work on This Morning, alleged there was a toxic environment on the show
The show's former resident doctor, Dr Ranj Singh, previously criticised the show's "toxic" culture, saying he raised concerns about "bullying and discrimination" two years ago when he worked there.
In its latest letter, ITV said that an external review conducted following a complaint made by Dr Ranj found "no evidence of bullying or discrimination".
"We were sorry to read his statement," the letter said. "We are fully committed to providing every opportunity for anyone who works with us to raise any concern or comments they may have.
"Following a complaint made by Dr Ranj, we appointed an external and independent adviser to carry out a review. This external review found no evidence of bullying or discrimination." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65769939 |
Nova Scotia battles its largest wildfire on record - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The Canadian fires have had a wide impact, with air quality warnings issued in the US northeast. | US & Canada | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Firefighters in Nova Scotia are battling the largest wildfire in the Atlantic province's history.
Officials say the fire on the southern tip of the province has burned about 20,000 hectares, with flames reaching nearly 100m (328ft) in height.
Meanwhile, another fire that has forced the evacuation of thousands near Halifax, the largest city, continues to burn.
The wildfire smoke has travelled south, with air quality warnings in the US.
As of Thursday morning, Nova Scotia officials said the massive fire in Shelburne County in the south of the province is still burning. No fatalities or injuries have been reported, but abouy 50 homes have been destroyed as a result of the fire.
Dave Rockwood, a spokesperson with the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources, told reporters on Wednesday that the fire appears to be "very fast moving".
Mr Rockwood said firefighters have spotted flames as tall as 60 to 90m.
The fire is significantly larger than the average seen during an entire fire season in Nova Scotia, said Lucas Brehaut, a wildfire researcher with the Canadian Forest Service.
"Last year was quite high, at about just over 3,000 hectares burned," Mr Brehaut told the BBC. The Shelburne County fire, by comparison, is more than five times that size.
He added the high flames reported by firefighters are an indication of how strong and rapid the wildfire's spread has been.
More than 6,000 people have been evacuated from the region, the local Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) division said.
They are in addition to another 16,400 people who were evacuated from a suburban area nearby Halifax due to a smaller, 836-hectare wildfire that has been burning since Saturday and has destroyed around 200 homes and structures.
On Wednesday, Nova Scotia officials increased the fine for breaking the provincewide burn ban - a restriction on outdoor fires - to C$25,000 ($18,000; £14,800) - a massive jump from C$237.50.
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Officials said that smaller fire is more than 50% contained as of Thursday morning, but are fearful the flames may spread due to hot weather in the forecast.
"We are still dealing with a very dangerous and volatile situation," said David Steeves, a spokesperson with the Department of Natural Resources, adding the temperature could climb above 30C (86F) later in the day.
Officials said rain is not forecast for the region until Friday, and that they remain unsure on when residents can return to their homes.
Canada's federal government also announced on Thursday that it will be sending more resources to help Nova Scotia battle the flames.
This includes military personnel, as well as additional firefighters to help relieve those who have been working on the ground for days.
More than 300 firefighters from the US and South Africa are heading to Canada in the coming days. Some will be sent to battle fires in Nova Scotia, while others will be sent to battle ongoing fires in Canada's western province of Alberta.
They will join firefighters from Australia and New Zealand who are already on the ground.
The massive fire in Shelburne County has destroyed around 50 homes and forced the evacuation of 5,000 residents
Nova Scotia is seeing an unusually active wildfire season this year, Mr Brehaut said. It is part of a wider trend in Canada where the fire season has had an earlier start than normal.
Officials say that the number of wildfires across the country is on par with the 10-year average, but the amount of land burned - around 2.7m hectares in total - is unprecedented.
The fires have had an impact as far as the US, where air quality warnings were issued in Rhode Island and Massachusetts on Wednesday.
Some people in Boston have reported smelling smoke outside, according to reports in local media, while photos have shown a hazy sky over New York City on Tuesday as a result of the fires.
Nova Scotia officials said it remains unclear how the two fires started. Provincial officals
Experts say that while wildfires can be sparked by direct human involvement, natural factors, like strikes of lightning, can also play a huge part.
The cycle of extreme and long-lasting heat caused by climate change draws more and more moisture out of the ground and vegetation, resulting in conditions ripe for wildfires. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65755795 |
US actor Danny Masterson found guilty on two rape counts - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Three women said the actor sexually assaulted them at his Hollywood home between 2001-03. | US & Canada | Masterson arrives at the Los Angeles court to learn his fate with his wife, Bijou Phillips
A jury in Los Angeles has found US actor Danny Masterson guilty on two out of three counts of rape.
The star of That '70s Show, a TV series, faces up to 30 years in prison. He was led from court in handcuffs.
Three women, all former members of the Church of Scientology, accused the actor of sexual assault at his Hollywood home from 2001-03.
Prosecutors argued Masterson had relied on his status as a prominent Scientologist to avoid accountability.
The jury of seven women and five men was unable to reach a verdict on a third count after a week of deliberations, ending up deadlocked at 8-4.
One of his victims, who was raped in 2003, said in a statement quoted by the Associated Press: "I am experiencing a complex array of emotions - relief, exhaustion, strength, sadness - knowing that my abuser, Danny Masterson, will face accountability for his criminal behaviour."
Masterson's wife, actress and model Bijou Phillips, wept as he was led away, CBS News reports. Other family and friends sat stone-faced.
Another jury in an earlier trial was unable to reach a verdict in December 2022.
Prosecutors chose to retry Masterson and this time the judge allowed attorneys to present new evidence that had been barred from the first trial.
Though the actor was not charged with drugging his victims, the jury heard testimony that the women had been dosed before he raped them.
Masterson was first accused of rape in 2017 during the height of the #MeToo movement. He responded by saying that he had not been charged or convicted of a crime, and that in the climate at the time "it seems as if you are presumed guilty the moment you are accused".
Charges came after a three-year investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department. Prosecutors did not file charges in two other cases because of insufficient evidence and the statute of limitations expiring.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors argued that the Church of Scientology had helped cover up the assaults - an allegation the organisation has categorically denied.
In a statement after the verdict was announced, the International Church of Scientology claimed prosecutors' attacks on the Church during the trial were "an unprecedented violation of the First Amendment".
"The Church was not a party to this case and religion did not belong in this proceeding," the organisation wrote on Twitter. "The District Attorney unconscionably centred his prosecution on the defendant's religion."
At the time of the assaults, Masterson and all three of his accusers were Scientologists. Several of the women said it took them years to come forward because Church of Scientology officials discouraged them from reporting the rape to police.
Instead, they were forced to rely on the Church's "internal justice system", prosecutors said.
Scientology officials told one survivor she would be kicked out of the Church unless she signed a non-disclosure agreement and accepted a payment of $400,000 (£320,000), according to prosecutors.
Judge Charlaine Olmedo allowed both sides to discuss the dogma and practices of Scientology.
But Deputy District Attorney Ariel Anson told jurors during the trial: "The Church taught his victims, 'Rape isn't rape, you caused this, and above all, you are never allowed to go to law enforcement.'"
In its statement, the Church said there was "not a scintilla of evidence supporting the scandalous allegations that the Church harassed the accusers".
Throughout the trial, the defence tried to undermine the credibility of the "Jane Does" by focusing on inconsistencies in their testimony and their supposed drive to get "revenge" against their former Church.
During closing arguments, Masterson's defence lawyer said of the survivors: "If you are looking for motives why people are not being truthful… there are motives all over the place."
Although the Church of Scientology was not a defendant in the case, before closing arguments began, a lawyer with ties to the Church emailed the district attorney's office to complain about the way the Church was portrayed during the retrial.
The defence also argued that the prosecution had relied heavily on testimony about drugging because there was an absence of evidence of any force or violence.
Masterson's lawyers tried, unsuccessfully, to have a mistrial declared. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65772615 |
Donald Trump recorded saying he kept classified file after leaving office - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Prosecutors investigating the former president's handling of classified files obtain an audio tape. | US & Canada | The justice department is investigating Donald Trump's handling of classified documents after he left office
US prosecutors have obtained an audio recording of Donald Trump in which he acknowledges keeping a classified document after leaving the White House.
CNN first reported that investigators had the tape, and people familiar with the matter later told the BBC's US partner CBS this was the case.
The justice department is investigating Mr Trump's handling of classified material. He denies wrongdoing.
The inquiry is reported to be nearing its end and could result in charges.
The audio recording is said to be from a meeting at Mr Trump's New Jersey golf club in July 2021, which is around six months after he left office.
Two people familiar with the matter told CBS that Mr Trump can be heard acknowledging there are national security restrictions on a military memo because it details a potential attack on Iran.
He says it is still classified and should have been declassified before leaving the White House, one person said.
Mr Trump also says he wants to share information from the document but knows his ability to declassify it is limited because he is no longer president, CNN reported.
It is not clear whether Mr Trump had the document during the meeting or was just describing it to several aides who were there. Other reports suggest the sound of rustling paper can be heard.
The tape appears to contradict Mr Trump's repeated argument that he declassified all material he removed from the White House. It could also prove to be a key piece of evidence if prosecutors seek to show the former president was aware he should not be in possession of classified documents.
Neither the BBC or CBS News have listened to the audio and it has not been made public.
It has been handed over to justice department investigators who are being overseen by special prosecutor Jack Smith.
Their investigation, which has ramped up in recent weeks, is examining the removal of hundreds of classified government documents from the White House which were then taken to Mr Trump's Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, after he left office.
Investigators are assessing how these documents were stored and who may have had access to them. They are also examining how his team responded to a request for security footage from his Florida estate.
Mr Smith will ultimately decide whether the former president should face criminal charges. Among other statutes, the justice department believes Mr Trump may have violated the Espionage Act by keeping national security information after he left office.
Mr Trump, who is running for president again in 2024, faces several other legal investigations. He was recently indicted in New York over hush money payments made to a porn star. He has pleaded not guilty.
He is also the subject of an investigation in Georgia over his alleged efforts to try and overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the state. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65775163 |
Madeleine McCann: German police say objects analysed after Portugal search - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Officials say it is not clear if items found at a reservoir in Portugal are linked to the missing Briton. | UK | Madeleine McCann was three when she went missing in 2007
Several objects were found during a search of a Portuguese reservoir in connection with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, German officials say.
It was too early to confirm whether the items, which are being analysed, are connected to the missing Briton, Braunschweig prosecutors added.
Portuguese police helped by their German counterparts, searched the Arade reservoir in Portugal last week.
Madeleine disappeared from a holiday complex in the Algarve in May 2007.
Police say their investigation into 46-year-old German national Christian Brueckner, who has been named as an "arguido" or official suspect, is expected to continue for some time.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The BBC's Daniel Sandford was at the reservoir in Portugal after the police search ended
Christian Wolters, prosecutor for the city of Braunschweig, said the items found in Portugal would be examined over the coming weeks.
"We thank all officers who participated in the search. The co-operation between the Portuguese police, the British officers and the German federal police was outstanding and very constructive," he added.
Heavy machinery, sniffer dogs and pickaxes were used during the three-day search - which came at the request of German investigators who believe convicted sex offender Brueckner is the prime suspect in her disappearance.
He is currently serving a prison sentence in Germany for the 2005 rape of a woman on the Algarve. Brueckner lived in the region between 1995 and 2007, say police.
The Arade lake is 31 miles (50km) from where Madeleine went missing while on holiday with her family in Praia da Luz.
Brueckner is thought to have often travelled in his Volkswagen T3 camper van to the reservoir - which is known to have been used as an unofficial camping spot.
The German denies any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance, saying he was "miles away" at the time.
Madeleine was three-years-old when she vanished from the holiday complex where she had been on holiday with her parents Kate and Gerry McCann on 3 May 2007.
They left her and her younger twin siblings asleep in their apartment while they went out to dinner with friends.
Last month, the McCann family marked the 16th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance, saying she is "still very much missed" and they "await a breakthrough". | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65774844 |
Phillip Schofield dropped as Prince's Trust ambassador - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The television presenter quit This Morning after admitting an affair with a younger colleague. | Entertainment & Arts | King Charles, then the Prince of Wales, with Phillip Schofield at the annual Prince's Trust Awards in 2019
The Prince's Trust has dropped Phillip Schofield as an ambassador after he admitted he had an affair with a young male colleague and lied to cover it up.
The charity, founded by the King, said it was "no longer appropriate" for it to work with the presenter.
Schofield, 61, issued a statement last Friday about the relationship and announced he was leaving ITV.
It came a week after he quit his role at ITV's This Morning after reports of a rift with co-star Holly Willoughby.
A Prince's Trust spokesperson said: "In light of Phillip's recent admissions, we have agreed with him that it is no longer appropriate to work together."
The Prince's Trust has a number of celebrity ambassadors who support the charity through fundraising or promoting its work.
Representatives from ITV and other channels are due to appear in front of the Commons' culture, media and sports committee next Tuesday to discuss reforms to the laws governing public broadcasting.
MP John Nicolson, a former BBC journalist who sits on the committee and is also the SNP's culture spokesman, said on Twitter that recent events at ITV were a "cause for concern" and that he was looking forward to "getting some answers" from ITV bosses.
In a statement last Friday, Schofield apologised for lying repeatedly to hide the relationship with the male employee, calling it "unwise but not illegal".
ITV said it was "deeply disappointed by the admissions of deceit" made by Schofield and confirmed it had cut all ties with the host.
The network said it had investigated rumours of a relationship between Phillip and a younger employee in 2020 - but both "repeatedly denied" it.
Schofield was also dropped by his talent agency YMU.
ITV said Schofield's statement "reveals that he lied to people at ITV, from senior management to fellow presenters, to YMU, to the media and to others over this relationship".
His exit from ITV means he will no longer present the British Soap Awards next month.
He will also not front a new prime-time series which the network said last week they were developing with him. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65761305 |
French Open 2023: Novak Djokovic stands by Kosovo message after criticism - BBC Sport | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | null | Novak Djokovic has stood by the political message he wrote on a camera lens about Kosovo, saying it is an issue he "stands for". | null | Last updated on .From the section Tennis
Coverage: Live text and radio commentaries of selected matches across BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra, the BBC Sport website and app
Novak Djokovic says he is "aware people would disagree" with him writing a political message about Kosovo on a French Open camera lens but it is an issue he "stands for".
Djokovic, 36, wrote "Kosovo is the heart of Serbia. Stop the violence" after his first-round win on Monday.
France's sports minister said the Serb's actions were "not appropriate" and should not happen again.
"A drama-free Grand Slam, I don't think it can happen for me," said Djokovic.
"I guess that drives me, as well."
The phrase Djokovic wrote is in reference to recent tension in Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Serbia has never recognised Kosovo's independence.
There has been violence in the past days following the installation of ethnic Albanian mayors in the north of the country, with police and Nato troops clashing with Serb protesters.
In his post-match news conference, the 22-time Grand Slam champion attempted to put the controversy behind him.
Asked if he had thought about the negative reaction to his actions, Djokovic said: "Of course I'm aware that a lot of people would disagree, but it is what it is. It's something that I stand for. So that's all."
After beating Hungary's Marton Fucsovics in the second round on Wednesday, Djokovic marked the lens - which the winner does after every French Open match - with his signature.
World governing body the International Tennis Federation said Djokovic's statement did not violate any rules because the Grand Slam rulebook does not ban political statements.
French sports minister Amelie Oudea-Castera said there needs to be a "principle of neutrality for the field of play".
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Oudea-Castera said she made a distinction for messages in support for Ukraine in the face of Russia's invasion, adding that she did not put Kosovo and Ukraine "on the same level".
That includes supporting Ukrainian player Marta Kostyuk, who was booed by the crowd after she refused to shake hands with Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus on Sunday.
Belarus is an ally of Russia and allowed troops to use its territory to launch last year's invasion of Ukraine.
Djokovic, whose father was born in Kosovo, said earlier in the week he was "against wars, violence and any kind of conflict" but that the situation in Kosovo is a "precedent in international law".
"Especially as a son of a man born in Kosovo, I feel the need to give my support to our people and to the entirety of Serbia," he said on Monday.
"Kosovo is our cradle, our stronghold, centre of the most important things for our country. There are many reasons why I wrote that on the camera.
"Of course it hurts me very much as a Serb to see what is happening in Kosovo and the way our people have been practically expelled from the municipal offices, so the least I could do was this."
Kosovo Olympic authorities have asked the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to open disciplinary proceedings against Djokovic, accusing him of stirring up political tension.
"Kosovo is the heart of Serbia" might seem like an odd statement. After all, Kosovo became independent in 2008 - and its geographical location in the south west meant that, even before then, it was always on the periphery of Serbia.
But its symbolic significance remains highly important to many Serbs. The 1389 Battle of Kosovo has been mythologised as the crucial event in the forging of Serbian identity. And many of the most important sites of the Serbian Orthodox Church are within modern-day Kosovo.
Serbia is one of scores of countries which refuse to recognise Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence. And Serbians with family ties to Kosovo are particularly keen to ensure that Serbia's policy of non-recognition continues.
It has been a turbulent month for Serbia - with mass shootings and multiple protests - and ethnic-Serbs in Kosovo. By writing his courtside message, the country's sporting icon was showing his support - but in a way which was bound to ruffle feathers.
With his marker pen scribble, Djokovic neatly illustrated the enduring complexity of the situation.
• None Peacekeepers in the middle as Kosovo-Serbia row escalates
• None In 2013, Simon Watts spoke to George 'Johnny' Johnson, the last survivor of the Dambusters squadron
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• None Alerts: Get tennis news sent to your phone | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/65772962 |
Ely: Boys died from head injuries in Cardiff crash - inquest - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Kyrees Sullivan and Harvey Evans were found by a member of the public, an inquest opening hears. | Wales | Kyrees Sullivan, 16, and Harvey Evans, 15, died in an electric bike crash
Two boys who died after an electric bike crash that sparked a riot suffered head injuries, a coroner has been told.
Kyrees Sullivan, 16, and his friend Harvey Evans, 15, died on Snowden Road, Ely, in Cardiff shortly after 18:00 BST on 22 May.
They were found by a member of the public, Pontypridd Coroner's Court heard.
Their deaths led to a riot, with cars set alight and police officers attacked.
The boys were seen riding an electric bike on the road, coroner Patricia Morgan was told.
"A short time later, both were found by a member of the public having come off the bike," the inquest into their deaths heard.
Post-mortem examinations found the provisional cause of death for Kyrees to be "blunt injury to the head," while Harvey died as a result of "blunt injury to the head and trunk".
The coroner said the deaths were "violent or unnatural" and an inquest was required, but adjourned for an ongoing police investigation to be concluded.
Cars were overturned and set on fire during a riot that saw injuries to 15 police officers
Nine people were arrested for allegedly taking part in the riot.
One of the boys' aunts said police are to blame for the crash.
"They were two children who were chased to their death by South Wales Police," said Hayley Murphy, aunt of Harvey.
Harvey's aunt and grandmother described him as cheeky but loveable
Police admitted officers had been following the boys before the crash, but said only the bike was involved in the fatal incident.
CCTV from minutes before the crash showed a police van driving at a distance behind the two boys, but the force said its nearest vehicle was half a mile away when the bike crashed.
About 800 family, friends and members of the wider community of Ely attended a vigil and balloon release for the two boys last Friday evening.
Ms Murphy told the BBC after the vigil: "It still doesn't seem real that we're here for Harvey and Kyrees."
Many tributes to the two boys have been left in Ely
She also revealed the electric bike was an early 16th birthday present.
Harvey's grandmother, Dawn Rees, said Harvey and Kyrees "did everything together, they loved each other like brothers".
"[Kyrees] was lovely. If I needed milk he went to the shop for me, always asking if I needed anything. A lovely boy," she added. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65776549 |
Glasgow garage owner to continue low emission zone fight - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | William Paton says the ban on high-polluting vehicles will have a huge impact on his business. | Glasgow & West Scotland | William Paton intends to ask for a judicial review of the council's LEZ policy.
A business owner whose legal bid to delay the introduction of Glasgow's low emission zone failed, has vowed to continue his fight.
William Paton claims the ban on high-polluting vehicles will have a detrimental impact on his garage, which is located 500m inside the zone.
He now plans to take his case to judicial review.
Glasgow City Council said it would "vigorously defend any legal challenge".
The low emission zone (LEZ) came into force in Glasgow city centre on Thursday.
Mr Paton's bid to have the scheme paused was thrown out of the Court of Session on Wednesday.
He told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland that, following legal advice, he intends to take the case to a judicial review.
He said he decided to take legal action as the scheme will have a "monumental" impact on the garage - Patons Accident Repair Centre - he runs in Glasgow's Townhead.
"The council haven't mitigated for my loss, they've never said what about a business that doesn't rely on the person making the journey, we rely on the actual vehicle itself coming into us," Mr Paton said.
In general, the new rules mean petrol cars made before 2005 and diesels built before September 2014 will not be allowed in the zone.
Mr Paton claimed the council had not answered questions about whether non-compliant vehicles currently in his garage would be fined when leaving, or whether his non-complaint vehicles could be taken to the garage on a flat-bed truck.
Mr Paton added that about 35% of the vehicles that come into his garage are considered "high-polluting" under the new rules, meaning he could lose a third of his customers.
"We've had any diesel pre-2015, any petrol vehicle pre-2006 completely removed from us a potential customer," he said.
"Its not just us there's other dealerships up here at Townhead that face similar problems," he said.
The LEZ covers most of Glasgow city centre from the M8 motorway to the north and west, the River Clyde to the south, and the Saltmarket/High Street to the east.
Donald McLeod, of the Night Time Industries Association, said the new regulations were creating a "low economy zone".
"If people make Glasgow why are the council bringing in such punitive a measure to deter visitors," he said.
He said city centre businesses, employees and suppliers should qualify for exemptions.
A LEZ affecting only buses in Glasgow city centre has been in place since 2018.
Blue badge holders, motorbikes, mopeds and emergency vehicles are exempt from the new rules.
And around 700 taxi drivers have also been granted an exemption until June 2024.
A homeless charity which said the zone would affect its ability to feed vulnerable people in the city centre received an exemption on Wednesday evening.
It means Homeless Project Scotland will be able to use their current vehicle for two months while work is carried out on its new LEZ-compliant van.
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Glasgow City Council's climate and transport convenor, councillor Angus Millar, said the low emission zone would ensure "cleaner, more breathable air".
"It's important to stress that around 85-90% of vehicles that currently enter the city centre have already been meeting the standards of the LEZ," he told the BBC.
"There will definitely be some impacts on certain businesses who might have to change the way they operate.
"What I would say is there have been around 500 LEZs or similar initiatives in operation across Europe and we've seen that city centre businesses by and large have actually benefitted from the improvements in air quality."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-65767852 |
Daniel Knott: Mum's heartbreak at online video of son's body - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Daniel Knott's mother says her grief has been amplified by a video of his body being shared online. | Wales | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Daniel Knott was 39 when he took his own life
A mother who lost her son to suicide said her grief was amplified by a video of his body being shared on social media.
Daniel Knott, 39, died on 27 March and days later his mother Jenny Tancock was told about the distressing video.
A man had filmed Daniel's body before the emergency services arrived.
"To go and share it online for the world to see... it's the ultimate insult, the ultimate degrading of someone I think," said Jenny.
Jacob Morse, 22, was sentenced to six weeks in prison at Llanelli Magistrates' Court on 18 May after pleading guilty to circulating the video online.
Jenny has not watched the video, but said knowing that others had seen it caused her and the rest of her family huge distress.
"[I felt] anger, pure anger, disbelief that somebody could be so vile as to arrive at a scene like that and actually video it," said Jenny from Betws, Carmarthenshire.
Jenny says she and Daniel were always incredibly close
"For us what Jake Morse has done has just amplified that grief. We're dealing with something so vile when we should just be grieving for Daniel."
Jenny was told a woman found Daniel's body who then called the emergency services.
But Morse, who had been working nearby, came across the scene and filmed Daniel's body using his mobile phone before emergency services arrived.
Jenny said coming face-to-face with Morse in court left her feeling "full of hate".
"I shouldn't have been there, I was grieving... I just shook from head to toe the whole time," she said.
Despite her anger, she said she had mixed feelings about Morse's six-week custodial sentence.
"It hit me as a mother, it really did, he just looked like a big kid… and I was really torn as to how I felt," she said.
"I kept thinking 'what would Dan do?' and I don't think Dan would have wanted him to go to prison.
"Six weeks isn't enough but at the same time it's a prison sentence, he's gone to prison and that tells me that our justice system is taking it seriously."
Jenny says her grief has been amplified by the actions of Jacob Morse
With the court case behind her, Jenny has been left to contemplate the horror of the past eight weeks.
"To lose a child is the worst thing that can ever happen to you. To lose them to suicide takes it to a different level," she said.
She said she remembers Daniel as "an enigma, full of beans, full of life, from the day he was born just kind, caring, generous, loved by everybody."
Daniel grew up to be a raver with a passion for fun, hardcore dance music and DJing.
But seven years ago that changed when Daniel was involved in a serious car crash which left him with a fractured skull and a broken back. He underwent an operation to have metal rods inserted to stabilise his back.
"He split with his girlfriend, lost his house, lost his job, lost everything really," said Jenny.
"Physically he couldn't play the decks anymore, he couldn't stand for long, he'd shake from head to toe because the rods were pressing on nerves.
"It's almost as though Daniel lost the fight."
She said when she saw police officers at her door she "just knew".
"I just said please don't, please don't."
Jenny and her family are being supported by local charity The Jac Lewis Foundation, which was set up by Jac Lewis's family after he took his own life.
The charity has accompanied her to court and arranged for her to have counselling.
She said the support had "helped us enormously".
Jenny said speaking out would be worth it if it could prevent "just one person who is tempted to take a video and share it under any kind of traumatic circumstances."
She said: "I want to raise awareness that these are human beings, they're people, they've got families, to share things on the internet for shock value or for likes is awful and I want them to know that there's consequences."
If you have been affected by issues raised in this article you can visit the BBC Action Line pages. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65727178 |
Andrew Tate BBC interview: Influencer challenged on misogyny and rape allegations - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | This is the influencer's first TV interview with a major broadcaster while under house arrest. | Europe | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Andrew Tate has denied fuelling a culture of misogyny and defended his reputation in a combative interview with the BBC.
When the BBC put a range of allegations to him - including specific accusations of rape, human trafficking and exploiting women, for which he is being investigated by Romanian prosecutors - he dismissed them.
When pushed on whether his controversial views on women harmed young people, the influencer claimed he was a "force for good" and that he was "acting under the instruction of God to do good things".
This was Mr Tate's first television interview with a major broadcaster since being released into house arrest from police custody in Romania in April.
Mr Tate, who has repeatedly expressed his mistrust of traditional media, has a huge following online but his views have until now gone unchallenged in a direct interview like this.
He agreed to our interview with no set conditions.
He dismissed the testimonies of individual women involved in the current investigation who have accused him of rape and exploitation.
And he described another woman, interviewed anonymously by the BBC earlier this year, as "imaginary", saying she had been invented by the BBC.
The woman in question, given the pseudonym Sophie to protect her identity, told BBC Radio 4's File on Four that she followed Mr Tate to Romania believing he was in love with her. There, she was pressured into webcam work and into having Mr Tate's name tattooed on her body, she said.
When questioned about Sophie's testimony, Mr Tate told the BBC: "I'm doing you the favour as legacy media, giving you relevance, by speaking to you. And I'm telling you now, this Sophie, which the BBC has invented, who has no face. Nobody knows who she is. I know."
Sophie is now helping Romanian prosecutors with the investigation.
I also put to him the concerns of schoolteachers, senior police figures and rights campaigners about the influence of his views.
These concerns include comments by the chief executive of Rape Crisis in England and Wales, who said she was "deeply concerned by the dangerous ideology of misogynistic rape culture that Mr Tate spreads".
Sitting across from me in a small armchair, Mr Tate said those accusations were "absolute garbage".
Later in the interview, he said it was "completely disingenuous" to "pretend" that he was damaging young people.
Andrew Tate denied fuelling a culture of misogyny and defended his reputation.
When asked about organisations that blamed him for increased incidents of girls being attacked, and female teachers being harassed, he said: "I have never, ever encouraged a student to attack a teacher, male or female, ever.
"I preach hard work, discipline. I'm an athlete, I preach anti-drugs, I preach religion, I preach no alcohol, I preach no knife crime. Every single problem with modern society I'm against."
Mr Tate suggested that some of his comments had been taken out of context or intended as "jokes" - including a video discussion in which he said that a woman's intimate parts belonged to her male partner.
"I don't know if you understand what sarcasm is. I don't know if you understand what context is. I don't know if you understand what's satirical content," he told me when challenged over the comment.
His description does not match the tone in an online video seen by the BBC.
He also denied admitting to emotional manipulation of women, despite comments made on a previous version of his online coaching course, Hustlers University.
An introduction on that site began: "My name is Andrew Tate… and I'm the most competent person on the entire planet to teach you about male-female interactions."
It goes on to say that Mr Tate's job was to "meet a girl, go on a few dates, sleep with her, get her to fall in love with me to where she'd do anything I say, and then get her on a webcam so we could become rich together".
The page has since been taken down.
When asked about it in our interview, Mr Tate replied, "I've never said that."
I suggested that making controversial statements had brought him a lot of money by attracting followers who then signed up for a paid course on how to become a successful man.
Mr Tate replied: "I genuinely am a force for good in the world. You may not understand that yet, but you will eventually. And I genuinely believe I am acting under the instruction of God to do good things, and I want to make the world a better place."
During our conversation, which lasted nearly forty minutes, Mr Tate pointed several times to what he called the "little pieces of paper" I had brought with me, telling me I was "saying silly things" and should "do some research".
In a sign of his mistrust of traditional media, our visit and interview were filmed by his team for their own use - and after we left he claimed that the BBC had promised only to ask "sanitised questions".
While the BBC did provide topics of discussion before the interview as a matter of courtesy, as per our editorial guidelines, we did not agree the questions we would ask in advance and were clear that our interview would be a wide-ranging, dynamic discussion with challenging questions.
Before we had even left the building, Mr Tate posted a message on social media promising to publish his own version of the interview, which he did shortly after.
The BBC has followed his case closely since the end of last year, when the Tate brothers were taken into custody, and has spoken to witnesses, former employees, neighbours and associates, and those involved in the investigation, to piece together an accurate picture of the Tate brothers' time in Romania.
The brothers are now in their sixth - and last - month under judicial control in this investigation, and any indictment is expected within the next few weeks.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65780107 |
FonaCab: Taxi firm sacks driver over 'gun' video - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A video circulated online shows the driver pointing what appears to be a gun at a passenger. | Northern Ireland | The video on social media shows the driver pointing what appears to be a gun at a man in the passenger seat
A Belfast taxi firm has terminated the employment of a driver over a video which shows him with a suspected firearm.
Police have said they are investigating the circumstances of the video.
In the video posted on social media, a driver for FonaCab points what appears to be a gun at another man in the front passenger seat of his car.
At one point the driver hits the other man in the face with it.
The footage appears to have been taken from a dashcam inside the taxi.
The BBC has identified the location in the background as a car park in Holywood, County Down.
In a statement, FonaCab told BBC News NI it was made aware of dashcam footage of an incident involving a FonaCab driver about 23:00 BST on 31 May.
"The driver was identified and called this morning to present at the earliest opportunity/ASAP to FonaCab Head Office, at which time he was interviewed and his relationship with FonaCab immediately terminated," it said.
A spokesperson for the Belfast taxi firm said it was liaising with the Driver and Vehicle Agency (DVA) Northern Ireland and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and any further action would be determined by them.
"Our investigation was completed and our action taken before the footage was released on social media," the firm said.
"Due to the nature of the content of the footage, it would be inappropriate to make any further comment on the footage while other investigations are undertaken."
FonaCab added that its staff receive the same training and vetting as all taxi drivers in Northern Ireland and it expects them to maintain high standards.
"We do not tolerate incidents like this where safety is compromised, standards are not upheld, or the company and our drivers are called into disrepute."
Police have said they are "aware of a video circulating online showing a man with a suspected firearm and have launched an investigation". | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-65780875 |
Ukraine war: Three killed in overnight missile attack on Kyiv - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Officials in Ukraine's capital say a child, her mother and another woman died in the missile strike. | Europe | Three people have died, including an 11-year-old girl, in a new night-time missile attack on Kyiv, regional police have said.
Russia has been subjecting the Ukrainian capital to regular aerial strikes with missiles and drones.
The latest attack, in which 11 other people were reported injured, occurred in the eastern Desnyanskyi and Dniprovskyi districts.
A 33-year-old woman and the girl's 34-year-old mother were also killed.
Earlier information from Ukrainian officials reported that two children had died, but that has since been revised.
This is the fourth attack this week, and comes after 17 strikes were launched on the Ukrainian capital throughout May. Most took place at night, although at least one occurred during the day.
Images shared by military authorities showed teams of rescuers attending to people, as well as damaged buildings.
In a number of early morning posts on Telegram, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a "series of explosions" had taken place in the city, and that rescuers had been dealing with fallen debris and fires.
Meanwhile, Russian-backed officials in the occupied part of Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region said five people had been killed and 19 injured by Ukrainian shelling at a poultry farm on Wednesday.
On Thursday morning, the governor of the western Russian region of Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, said at least two people had been injured in an attack on the town of Shebekino which he blamed on Ukrainian troops.
"The night is tense for Shebekino again. Ukrainian troops were shelling the city for an hour," Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on his Telegram channel.
In recent weeks, Russia - which launched its full-scale invasion on Ukraine in February 2022 - has been using kamikaze drones as well as a range of cruise and ballistic missiles to attack targets in Ukraine.
Kyiv has been heavily targeted, and analysts believe Moscow is trying to deplete and damage Ukraine's air defences ahead of a long-expected counter-offensive, which the Ukrainian government has been planning for months.
A building destroyed on a poultry farm in Luhansk region on Wednesday | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65772840 |
Bournemouth: Girl, 12, and boy, 17, die after incident off beach - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A man is arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and eight others are treated for injuries. | Dorset | The beach, packed with people enjoying half-term holidays, was cleared along with nearby Pier Approach
A 12-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy have died after being pulled from the sea off Bournemouth Pier.
Eight other people were treated for non-life-threatening injuries after emergency services were called at 16:32 BST on Wednesday.
A man in his 40s, who was on the water at the time, has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter, Dorset Police said.
It is not clear how the pair, who died in hospital, sustained their injuries.
Bournemouth, which is full of people on half-term holidays, has been stunned by the tragedy.
Many people who saw the incident unfold say, despite the helicopter, ambulance and coastguard activity, they did not get a sense of the horror until the police statement was put out.
The beach was cleared, along with the nearby Pier Approach, and a cordon set up
The coastguard said it had conducted a search to make sure there were no other people missing and was "satisfied there are not".
In a statement, Det Ch Supt Neil Corrigan said the beach was "very busy" at the time and appealed for anyone with information to come forward.
"We are at the early stages of our investigation and would ask people not to speculate about the circumstances surrounding the incident," he said.
The beach was cleared, along with the nearby Pier Approach, with a cordon set up.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Kathryn Walton was visiting the beach when lifeguards started rushing to the seafront
The beach, usually such a beautiful and benign setting, attracts families from all over the country.
Eeman Qamar, from Southampton, was there with her mother and three-month-old baby at the time.
She told the BBC that just after 16:00 lifeguards began to tell people to clear the beach, saying there had been a major incident.
"After about 20 minutes, the first air ambulance arrived and landed right in the middle of the beach," she said.
"The lifeguards started getting on jet skis and boats, searching the sea and about 20 minutes later the second air ambulance arrived and it took another hour-and-a-half for them to finish the whole search and rescue operation."
Kathryn Walton, from Oxford, was also on the scene with her family and described seeing lifeguards and "loads of people rushing on to the beach".
She said people were moved away from an area of the beach as several other emergency service vehicles arrived.
Another eyewitness, Trevor Pinto, had been walking along the pier with his 16-year-old son and said the incident happened "very close" by.
He said they watched as lifeguards attempted to resuscitate two people, adding: "It took me a while to realise, oh my god someone had lost their life".
Eyewitnesses reported seeing "loads of people rushing on to the beach" to help
Bournemouth West MP Conor Burns expressed his condolences to the families of those who died and said the incident was a "salutary lesson that our beaches and ocean can give much pleasure but danger is ever present".
"A dreadful event in circumstances when they were enjoying beautiful weather in our town. So sad," he wrote on Twitter. "Thanks to the lifeguards and the Air Ambulance who we can take for granted."
Anyone with any information is being asked to contact Dorset Police via the force's website or by calling 101, quoting occurrence number 55230083818. Crimestoppers can also be contacted anonymously via its website or on freephone 0800 555 111.
How have you been affected by what's happened? You can get in touch by emailing [email protected].
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Follow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected]. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-65771464 |
Mexican police find 45 bags of human remains - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Officials were searching a ravine near Guadalajara for seven young people reported missing last week. | Latin America & Caribbean | Mexican authorities have found 45 bags containing human remains in a ravine outside the western city of Guadalajara.
Officials were searching for seven young call centre workers, who had been reported missing last week, when they found the bodies.
The remains include men and women, and the number of bodies is not yet known.
The search is expected to continue for several days because of difficult terrain and poor lighting.
The state prosecutor's office for the western state of Jalisco said in a statement that, following a tip-off in the search for the seven people, they had begun searching at the Mirador del Bosque ravine where they found the bags that included body parts.
Firefighters and civil defence were working with police and a helicopter crew to recover the remains.
The first bag was found on Tuesday, but because of the difficult terrain and lack of sunlight, the investigation resumed on Wednesday and will continue until all remains are located, the prosecutor's office said.
Officials said they would continue working to determine the number of dead bodies, who they were, and their causes of death.
It added that it would continue trying to establish the whereabouts of the seven people reported as missing.
Although it has not yet been established how the bodies ended up in the ravine, crimes of disappearance are relatively common in Mexico.
More than 100,000 people are missing, government figures suggest, with many being victims of organised crime. Perpetrators are rarely punished.
Government data shows that many disappearances have occurred since 2007, when then-President Felipe Calderón launched his "war on drugs".
Three quarters of those reported missing were men and one fifth were under the age of 18 at the time of their disappearance.
Relatives of the disappeared say that the government is not doing enough to find them, and that officials are indifferent when they report their loved ones as missing.
The United Nations has called it "a human tragedy of enormous proportions".
Jalisco is the heartland of a violent drug war, and some of the most powerful groups operating there include the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG), and their rival, Nueva Plaza, which split from the CJNG in 2017, sparking violence across Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-65784023 |
I am not a groomer, says Schofield - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The former This Morning presenter speaks to the Sun about an affair he had with a young male colleague. | Entertainment & Arts | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: "It was consensual, but it was my fault," says Phillip Schofield.
Phillip Schofield has said he is "not a groomer" after admitting to having an affair with a younger male colleague.
The former This Morning presenter left ITV last week after he confirmed the relationship and he had lied about it.
The TV star told the Sun: "I did a bad thing: I will die sorry - I've brought the greatest misery into his totally innocent life."
Schofield has also spoken to the BBC's Amol Rajan, whose interview will be broadcast from 06:00 BST on Friday.
The full interview will be available on iPlayer.
The 61-year-old first met the man he would go on to have an affair with when he was invited to appear at an event at a drama school.
He said he knew people had found some elements of the story shocking, but said: "I am not a groomer."
The affair began, Schofield said, when the man was 20 years old and working alongside him at ITV.
"He worked on the show for a bit, and we became mates," Schofield told the newspaper.
"And then one day something happened that just changed it. And that is the moment I look back on, and regret so deeply."
Questions have been raised about ITV's handling of the situation, how much bosses knew of the affair, and whether its own investigation went far enough.
ITV's chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall has been asked to attend the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on 14 June to answer questions about the broadcaster's approach to safeguarding following the controversy.
Schofield told the Sun that his first romantic encounter with the man was in his dressing room at ITV.
"It was a consensual moment, it was mutual," he said. "It was not a love affair, it was not a relationship, we were not boyfriends; we were mates."
"Over a period of time it happened maybe five or six times. We just didn't think anyone knew, there was no lying, we thought, stupidly, that nobody knew."
He concluded: "You look at yourself, and I absolutely know there is no question I did a bad thing. I was unprofessional, one time, in a 41-year career.
"I know I did that. And there is no excuse. I don't have an excuse. I won't put forward an excuse. No-one did anything wrong apart from me."
Schofield also apologised to his former lover.
"It has brought the greatest misery into his totally innocent life, his totally innocent family, his totally innocent friends," he said. "It has brought the greatest grief to them."
ITV has instructed a barrister to carry out an external review to establish the facts about how the broadcast network handled its own investigation into rumours of the affair in 2020.
The full BBC interview will be available on BBC iPlayer from 0600 on Friday morning | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65780307 |
Glasgow's low emission zone legal challenge fails - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A vehicle repair business took the council to court in a bid have the LEZ scheme suspended. | Scotland business | A last minute legal challenge against Glasgow's low emission zone (LEZ) has been thrown out by a judge.
The scheme to ban more polluting vehicles from the city centre will start at midnight.
Patons Accident Repair Centre took the case to the Court of Session in Edinburgh in a bid to have it suspended ahead of further court action.
It accused Glasgow City Council of not consulting properly and putting businesses at risk.
But a judge at the Court of Session refused the motion and said the balance of convenience lay heavily in favour of the local authority and granted it expenses following the hearing.
After the ruling a council spokeswoman said the LEZ would come into force as planned.
The business which brought the case estimated it would lose a third of its business when it could no longer repair older vehicles.
Its workshop on Lister Street is about 500m (0.3 miles) inside the LEZ boundary in Townhead, an area with several car dealerships.
Four of those business previously joined Patons to propose a new boundary for the LEZ, but it was rejected by the council.
Company director William Paton told the Glasgow Times he did not think his business would last another two years within the low emission zone.
Patons Accident Repair Centre estimated it would lose a third of its business when it could no longer repair older vehicles
But the ruling was welcomed by Asthma + Lung Scotland, which described air pollution as a "public health emergency".
Joseph Carter, the charity's head, said: "It will mean a reduction in harmful air pollution for everyone.
"With one in five Scots developing a lung condition like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD] in their lifetime, for them, this is a day to celebrate."
The zone was conceived to tackle poor air quality, with many streets in Scotland regularly reaching harmful and illegal levels.
From midnight, when the new rules come into force, vehicles which do not meet emission standards will no longer be able to enter parts of the city centre.
Violations can lead to fines mounting to several hundreds of pounds per day.
While there are exemptions available for blue badge holders, motorbikes, mopeds and emergency vehicles, in general petrol cars made before 2005 and diesels built before September 2014 will not be allowed in the zone.
Scottish Conservative transport spokesman Graham Simpson said the legal challenges illustrated the way in which the "practical concerns of local businesses and communities have been ignored" by Glasgow's SNP and Green councillors.
"We all want to see a reduction in pollution and to meet environmental targets, but there is evidence that air quality is already meeting those standards, and that phase two will not result in further improvements," he said.
"Homeless charities and other groups, including St Andrew's First Aid, have said they would be prevented from operating effectively. There is an obvious danger to women and vulnerable groups, as well as shift workers, if late-night transport is unavailable."
Mr Simpson called on the council to urgently address the "flaws" in the scheme. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-65764885 |
Alex Belfield: Stalker ex-BBC DJ banned from contacting couple - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Alex Belfield, jailed in 2022, is barred from contacting a man he had sent a tweet to and his wife. | Nottingham | Alex Belfield was jailed for five and a half years for stalking four people, including Jeremy Vine
A former BBC radio presenter in jail for stalking has been banned from contacting two more people.
Alex Belfield, 43, who is serving a five-and-a-half year sentence for harassing four people online, including broadcaster Jeremy Vine, was made the subject of a stalking protection order.
He is banned from attempting to contact Greg Scott, a man he sent a tweet to, and his wife Karen.
He may also not publish, or attempt to, material relating to them.
Belfield, originally from Mapperley in Nottingham, appeared before Nottingham Magistrates' Court via video link from HMP Stocken, Rutland.
He was charged with stalking eight different people, who were mostly current or former BBC staff.
He was convicted of stalking BBC Radio Northampton presenter Bernard Spedding, known as Bernie Keith, and videographer Ben Hewis.
In relation to Vine and theatre blogger Philip Dehany, Belfield was found guilty of two lesser offences of "simple" stalking, which does not require serious alarm or distress to be proved.
Belfield was found not guilty of stalking Rozina Breen, Liz Green, Helen Thomas and Stephanie Hirst.
Vine told BBC Two's Newsnight that Belfield had taken him to a "really unhealthy place"
Neither Mr or Ms Scott were involved in the trial, in which Vine labelled Belfield "the Jimmy Savile of trolling" as the court heard he repeatedly posted or sent abusive messages, videos and emails.
It is not clear how Belfield first came into contact with the couple.
Addressing the court, Belfield said: "I have never met, gone near or ever contacted Karen Scott or done anything other than replying to Greg Scott. I just want to make that clear."
District judge Sunil Khanna said he was satisfied there was a need for the order to protect from stalking - and warned Belfield he could face further jail time if he breached it.
Belfield was a presenter at BBC Radio Leeds before running his own YouTube channel
He also made an order requiring Belfield to pay costs after barrister Christopher Pembridge said the case, which has been going on for three years, had cost police £20,000.
Mr Pembridge said it would be "unjust" for Belfield to pay the full costs, but asked the judge to consider an appropriate amount.
David Aubrey KC, representing Belfield, said his client should not shoulder substantial costs as his ability to work following his release from prison would be limited.
"[Belfield] is in prison and on the question of his earning capacity when he comes out of prison, there could be restrictions on what work he could do," he said.
"It is very much up in the air and will depend on what happens upon his release eventually."
Belfield made videos throughout his trial and posted them on YouTube
At Belfield's sentencing in September, the judge made restraining orders in relation to all of the complainants, including those he was not convicted of stalking.
Det Con Janet Percival, of Nottinghamshire Police, said: "It's been a long hard slog, but we've now managed to secure these significant orders which will provide peace of mind for these two victims who were caused genuine alarm and distress by Belfield.
"I understand that people can be reluctant to contact us - sometimes because they aren't sure that what's happening is serious enough to warrant police action, and sometimes because they feel we won't be able to help - but I can assure them that we will take their reports seriously and we will do whatever we can to help and protect them."
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The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-65777861 |
Every Canadian cigarette will soon carry a health warning - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Canada will be the first country to have warning labels on the tipping paper of individual cigarettes. | US & Canada | Health Canada made the decision to put labels directly on cigarettes after a 75-day public consultation period
Canada will soon print warning labels directly on cigarettes in a world-first, the country's health agency announced.
New packaging will feature a warning on each cigarette with phrases like: "Cigarettes cause cancer" and "Poison in every puff".
The regulation will come into effect on 1 August, Health Canada said.
It is part of an effort to reduce tobacco use in Canada to less than 5% by 2035.
In an announcement on Wednesday, Health Canada said the new regulations "will make it virtually impossible to avoid health warnings" on tobacco products.
The health agency anticipates that by April 2025, retailers in Canada will only carry tobacco products that feature the new warning labels directly on the cigarettes.
Products that will have labels on tipping paper include individual cigarettes, little cigars, tubes and other tobacco products, Health Canada said.
The move follows a 75-day public consultation period that was launched last year.
Warning labels are already printed on cigarette package covers. Health Canada said it plans to expand on those by printing additional warning labels inside the packages themselves, and introducing a new external warning messages.
In a statement, Canada's minister of mental health and addictions, Carolyn Bennett, said tobacco use kills around 48,000 Canadians each year.
"We are taking action by being the first country in the world to label individual cigarettes with health warning messages," Ms Bennett said, calling the change a "bold step".
Canada has required printing warning labels on cigarette packages in 1989. They have since been expanded to include photos and information cards inside packs
The move was applauded by the Canadian Cancer Society, Canada's Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Lung Association, who said they hope the measures will deter people, especially youth, from taking up smoking.
Cigarette smoking is widely regarded as a risk factor for lung cancer, heart disease and stroke.
Canada has required the printing of warning labels on cigarette packages since 1989, though it was behind the UK, which printed warnings as early as 1971.
The US was the first nation in the world to require health warnings on cigarette packages, passing its Federal Cigarette Labelling and Advertising Act in 1965.
Labels in all three countries have evolved over the years, notably to include sometimes graphic images in addition to text to show the health consequences of smoking.
Since the US introduced warning labels, the smoking rate has significantly decreased. Some studies, however, have found that labels are not a deterrent for people who have a high nicotine dependence.
According to data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 42% of US adults were smokers in the mid-1960s. In 2021, that number dropped to a historic low of 11%. However, electronic cigarette use appeared to have risen.
In Canada, the rate of smokers aged 15 years or older is around 10%, according to a national 2021 Tobacco and Nicotine survey. Like the US, the survey revealed vaping rates to be higher at around 17%. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65755793 |
Ukraine war: Teens used to report Russian propaganda - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Children as young as 16 are working at TV channels in occupied Ukraine, spouting Russian propaganda. | Europe | Alexander Malkevich (pictured) is a close associate of the head of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin
While Russia's notorious Wagner mercenaries have been at the forefront of fighting in Ukraine's ravaged eastern town of Bakhmut, a close associate of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has been involved in another battle - for the hearts and minds of people in occupied areas behind the front lines.
Alexander Malkevich has helped set up pro-Russian TV stations in key areas captured since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Through his links to Prigozhin the media boss has been involved in projects spreading Russian influence from Africa to the US and he is under Western sanctions for spreading disinformation.
Formally, Malkevich's job is running state-funded TV in Prigozhin's home city, St Petersburg. But in the summer of 2022 he moved to then-occupied parts of Ukraine, making the southern city of Kherson his base.
His main task was to set up pro-Russian television stations in regions captured since the start of the full-scale invasion. He has masterminded Tavria TV in Kherson, Za TV in Melitopol and Mariupol 24 in the eastern Donetsk region.
Alexander Malkevich (right) has recruited underage reporters for his propaganda channels
The channels' reporting strictly follows the Kremlin's propaganda narratives. For example, a recent programme aired by Tavria TV reminded its viewers of the reasons given by Moscow to justify its war against Ukraine. "Russian President Vladimir Putin says the special military operation was a forced step, because Moscow had been left with no other choice. Such security risks had been created for Russia that no other reaction was possible," it said.
One major obstacle facing Malkevich was an acute shortage of people willing and able to work for his channels.
To train staff, he opened a "media school" in Kherson, became head of the journalism department at the local university and authored a textbook for aspiring media workers in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, called "Real Russian journalism for new regions".
Some of his students joined his TV stations before becoming legally adults. Two reporters who started working for Za TV and Tavria TV respectively were both employed at the age of just 16. The BBC has chosen not to identify the two girls because of their age.
One of the teens is known as "Russia's youngest war reporter" and got an award from President Vladimir Putin
But Malkevich's stint in Kherson was short-lived. Shortly before the city was retaken by Ukrainian forces in November, he fled along with some equipment and staff. While evacuating, they came under fire, and one staff member (a Russian journalist and former FSB operative) was killed.
One of the teen reporters was wounded during the shelling, and was later presented with an Order of Bravery by President Putin at a ceremony in the Kremlin.
Malkevich first rose to relative prominence in 2018, when he launched USA Really - a website set up in the US by RIA FAN, which, in turn, is the most prominent outlet in the stable of propaganda and disinformation media associated with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner head once dubbed "Putin's chef" because he supplied food to the Kremlin.
PRIGOZHIN: From Putin's chef to head of Russia's private army
RIA FAN grew out of Prigozhin's infamous "troll factory", which spread pro-Kremlin views across social media and the internet from offices in St Petersburg.
But USA Really failed to take off, and Malkevich was briefly detained and questioned by the US authorities and later sanctioned for "facilitating Prigozhin's global influence operations".
A year after launching USA Really, Malkevich was back in St Petersburg, where he set up another propaganda venture, a foundation, reportedly with a spin doctor linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Melkevich is a close associate of Yevgeny Prigozhin (left), the Wagner chief known as "Putin's chef"
The Foundation for National Values Protection sent a man named Maxim Shugalei to Libya, ostensibly to research public opinion. The same man had been involved the previous year in Russian meddling in presidential elections in Madagascar, which saw one candidate offered a suitcase stuffed with cash, according to a BBC investigation.
While in Libya, one of Shugalei's engagements included a meeting with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the late deposed leader Col Muammar Gaddafi. Soon afterwards, in May 2019, he was arrested on suspicion of interfering in Libya's affairs on Prigozhin's behalf.
One Libyan intelligence officer told the BBC: "If Russia had its way, we would have had Saif Gaddafi giving his victory speech in Tripoli's famous Martyrs' Square."
Shugalei was freed in December 2020 and claimed in an interview that he had only been released because Prigozhin had sent "several thousand fighters" to Tripoli.
While in charge of the propaganda foundation, Malkevich also campaigned for the release of Maria Butina, a Russian agent sentenced to 18 months in jail in the US for attempting to infiltrate American political groups.
When she returned to Russia, Butina became an "expert" at the foundation, and when Shugalei came back from Libyan captivity, he replaced Malkevich as its head.
But Malkevich's links to Prigozhin's organisations remained. For example, his video programme for RIA FAN, called "Just A Minute", continued at least until September 2022, and the latest of his numerous interviews with the outlet is dated February 2023.
Malkevich's work in Ukraine did not go unnoticed by the Russian government. In January 2023, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin rewarded him for "organising TV broadcasting in territories which are being liberated." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65675102 |
Kim Cattrall to appear in And Just Like That series finale - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Samantha Jones was noticeably absent from the first series of the hit drama's spin-off show. | Entertainment & Arts | Kim Cattrall received five Emmy Award nominations for her role in the original Sex and the City
Kim Cattrall, who was noticeably absent from the first season of Sex and the City spin-off And Just Like That, will appear in the second series.
Variety reports she will reprise her role as Samantha Jones in one scene of the HBO show's season finale.
Cattrall, who has a strong gay following, shared the article online with the caption "Happy Pride".
The article reports that she shot her dialogue without other stars of the series, including Sarah Jessica Parker.
Cattrall's character is explained as being absent in a storyline that sees her move to London.
Davis, Parker and Nixon reunited for And Just Like That
The original Sex and the City ran for six series from 1998 to 2004 and generated two spin-off movies.
It created storylines about work and relationships for four New York women in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Parker and Cattrall starred alongside Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis as Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte.
Parker, Nixon and Davis appeared in the 10-part And Just Like That series in 2021.
It was never explained why Cattrall did not take part in the latest revival but she reportedly has a strained relationship with the show and her cast-mates.
In 2017, Cattrall told Piers Morgan she had "never been friends" with her co-stars.
Describing a "toxic relationship", she ruled out appearing in a third Sex and the City movie, and denied that her decision was down to pay negotiations or "diva" demands.
Cattrall commented that former co-star Parker "could have been nicer" about the situation.
Showrunner Michael Patrick King later said he could not imagine Cattrall returning to the show again.
But a reported conversation with CEO of HBO Casey Bloys was enough to change star's mind.
The second series of And Just Like That will air in June, with Cattrall's scene expected to be shown in August. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65776623 |
Kosovo: Nato ready to send more troops after unrest - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Pristina and Belgrade trade blame after ethnic Albanian mayors were elected in ethnic Serb areas. | Europe | Nato peacekeepers in the northern Kosovo town of Zvecan
Nato says it is ready to send more troops to Kosovo after unrest following the appointment of ethnic Albanian mayors to majority-Serb areas.
Pristina and Belgrade have blamed each other for the unrest, with Serbian leader Aleksandar Vucic calling for the mayors' removal.
The US has also criticised their installation, which came after Serb residents boycotted local polls.
Kosovo declared independence in 2008 but Serbia does not recognise it.
Nato has already sent 700 reinforcements to Kosovo but Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said more might be needed. The alliance already has 4,000 troops there.
The mayors were elected after Serbs in northern Kosovo boycotted local elections, depressing turnout to about 3% and leading ethnic Albanian candidates to be elected. Serb protestors then tried to stop them taking up their posts.
Some 30 Nato peacekeepers and more than 50 Serb protesters were hurt in the ensuing clashes.
Speaking on the sidelines of a European summit in Moldova, Mr Vucic said withdrawing the mayors would be the "most powerful" way to defuse tensions.
He insisted that his country would "attempt to persuade Serbs to protest calmly and peacefully".
But at the same event Kosovan President Vjosa Osmani blamed Belgrade for the recent violence, accusing it of "supporting criminal gangs" in the country.
Serbia "needs to come to terms with its past", he said, adding that the "real threat in fact is coming from Serbia's denial of existence of a sovereign state".
The US, which backed Kosovo's independence from Serbia, criticised Kosovo's decision to install ethnic Albanian mayors in northern Kosovo "by forcible means" and expelled Kosovo from participating in an ongoing American-led military exercise in Europe.
Serbia's ally Russia has called for the rights of ethnic Serbs in Kosovo to be respected.
Following the violence Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic drew attention to the situation by writing "Kosovo is the heart of Serbia. Stop the violence" after his first-round win at the French Open.
The tennis player, whose father was born in Kosovo, later said: "Of course it hurts me very much as a Serb to see what is happening in Kosovo and the way our people have been practically expelled from the municipal offices, so the least I could do was this."
On Wednesday, following criticism from France's sports minister, he said it is an issue he "stands for" although he was aware that some would disagree with his action. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65774388 |
Glasgow's Barras market celebrated in photo exhibition - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | A photography student learned of her own connection to the market after embarking on the project. | Glasgow & West Scotland | Fiona Kennedy is an alternative fashion and festival-wear designer and stall owner
When Rebecca Russell was 10-years-old, she used her first digital camera to photograph the stalls and traders at Glasgow's famous Barras market.
More than a decade later the photography student returned to the marketplace ahead of her new exhibition.
While she was working on the university project, the 23-year-old learned that her great-grandparents ran a jewellery stall at the Barras during the 1930s.
"That drew me in more," Rebecca said. "Because I had been visiting the Barras ever since I was wee and my dad had never mentioned it to me before."
Rebecca Russell remembers visiting this stall when she was a child
The street and indoor market in Glasgow's East End opened in 1934. The term "barra" is Glaswegian dialect for "barrow" relating to the market's early years where traders sold their goods from handcarts.
Rebecca's project, The Great Glasgow Bazaar, is based around today's stallholders, capturing them in a style inspired by street photographers such as Vivian Maier.
"I've always been fascinated by car boot sales and markets," Rebecca, from Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, said.
"I went to the Barras when I was young - probably about 10-years-old and photographed it with my first digital camera," she said.
"With this project, I wanted to get to know the communities behind the stalls."
This well-dressed man is one of the owners of the stall 'Aw The Best Clobber'
Rebecca said this man told her that he might be the most photographed man in Glasgow
Rebecca said that with the story about her great-grandmother's stall, she had an instant connection with the vendors and they were always willing to to talk with her.
"I felt it was important that I get to know the stallholders a bit before taking the photos," she said. "At first I was extremely anxious, as these people are just trying to make a living and I wasn't sure how they would respond.
"When I'd tell them what I was doing, they were excited. They'd point across the road and shout 'go get a photo of him too!', stuff like that."
The frames behind Rebecca came from the Barras
The fourth-year Edinburgh Napier University student said that the marketplace is "like a family".
"Not even just the traders, the people who go to spend time there. Everyone there is so close," she said.
An extra connection between Rebecca's 2023 degree show exhibition and the Barras is hidden in the display - the photo frames came from one of the market stands.
"I saw them there one day and realised they would be great for the project," Rebecca said. "I wanted to create that vibe of non-uniformity."
Rebecca said she was photographing someone else when they asked her to take a photo of this gentleman as well
She said the chance to capture these shots has been a highlight of her time on Edinburgh Napier's BA Photography programme.
"I've always had a camera in my hands. I started with an early iPod touch and have done it ever since.
"I was too nervous to take photography seriously at school, but it's been great to have the opportunity to do it here."
Showcasing work from students at the School of Arts and Creative Industries, the 2023 degree show runs at Edinburgh Napier University's Merchiston campus until 20:00 BST on 1 June. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-65765811 |
Multi-cancer blood test shows real promise in NHS study - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The Galleri test revealed the correct site of a tumour 85% of the time in a study with 5,000 patients. | Health | A blood test for more than 50 types of cancer has shown real promise in a major NHS trial, researchers say.
The test correctly revealed two out of every three cancers among 5,000 people who had visited their GP with suspected symptoms, in England or Wales.
In 85% of those positive cases, it also pinpointed the original site of cancer.
The Galleri test looks for distinct changes in bits of genetic code that leak from different cancers. Spotting treatable cancer early can save lives.
The test remains very much a "work in progress", the researchers, from Oxford University, say, but could increase the number of cancers identified.
Often, patients have symptoms, such as weight loss, with a range of possible causes and require multiple tests and hospital visits.
More than 350 of those in the study - the biggest of its kind in patients with suspected cancer symptoms - were subsequently diagnosed with cancer, using traditional methods such as scans and biopsies. About:
Although not accurate enough to "rule in or rule out cancer", the test was really useful for patients lead researcher Prof Mark Middleton told BBC News.
"The test was 85% accurate in detecting the source of the cancer - and that can be really helpful because so many times it is not immediately obvious when you have got the patient in front of you what test is needed to see whether their symptoms are down to cancer," he said.
"With that prediction from the test, we can decide whether to order a scope or a scan and make sure we are giving the right test the first time."
The findings will be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology conference, in Chicago.
The NHS has also been using the Galleri test, developed by Californian company Grail, in thousands of people without symptoms, to see if it can detect hidden cancers.
Initial results are expected next year - and, if successful, the NHS in England plans to extend the rollout to a further one million people in 2024 and 2025.
The test is particularly good at finding hard-to-spot cancers such as head and neck, bowel, lung, pancreatic, and throat cancers.
Dr David Crosby, from Cancer Research UK, said: "The findings from the study suggest this test could be used to support GPs to make clinical assessments - but much more research is needed, in a larger trial, to see if it could improve GP assessment and ultimately patient outcomes."
NHS national director for cancer Prof Peter Johnson said: "This study is the first step in testing a new way to identify cancer as quickly as possible, being pioneered by the NHS - earlier detection of cancer is vital and this test could help us to catch more cancers at an earlier stage and help save thousands of lives." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-65775159 |
Government to launch legal bid to stop Covid inquiry seeing Johnson WhatsApps - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The government’s refusal to share Boris Johnson’s messages sets up an unprecedented legal showdown. | UK Politics | The UK government is to launch an unprecedented legal challenge over the Covid inquiry's demand for WhatsApp messages and documents.
The government missed a 16:00 deadline to share Boris Johnson's messages and notebooks from during the pandemic.
It is thought to be the first time a government has taken legal action against its own public inquiry.
Mr Johnson said he would be "more than happy" to give the unredacted material directly to the inquiry's chair.
The Cabinet Office - the department that supports the prime minister in running the government - had until 16:00 on Thursday to hand over all documents requested by the Covid inquiry.
But the government refused to disclose some of the material by arguing it was not relevant to the inquiry, it would compromise ministers' right to privacy, and would set a precedent that could prevent ministers discussing policy matters in future.
Crossbench peer and retired judge Baroness Hallett, who is the inquiry's chair, says it is up to her to decide what material is relevant.
Mr Johnson has not disclosed any WhatsApp messages sent before April 2021 because his mobile phone was involved in a security breach and has not been turned on since, his spokesman said.
The former prime minister has written to the Cabinet Office asking whether security and technical support can be given so that content can be retrieved without compromising security, the spokesman added.
In a highly unusual move announced after the 16:00 deadline had passed, the Cabinet Office said it would seek a judicial review of Baroness Hallett's order to release the documents.
This means a judge will have to decide whether the inquiry has overreached its legal powers - setting up a potential legal showdown in court just weeks before the inquiry is due to hold its first public hearings.
Ministers set up the Covid inquiry in 2022 and tasked Baroness Hallett with identifying lessons from the government's handling of the pandemic.
Elkan Abrahamson, the lawyer representing the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group, said: "The Cabinet Office is showing utter disregard for the inquiry in maintaining their belief that they are the higher power and arbiter of what is relevant material and what is not.
"It raises questions about the integrity of the inquiry and how open and transparent it will be if the chair is unable to see all of the material."
Opposition parties have accused Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's government of trying to obstruct the Covid inquiry and urged him to comply with its requests.
Labour's deputy leader, Angela Rayner, branded the legal challenge a "desperate attempt to withhold evidence" and said "these latest smoke-and-mirror tactics serve only to undermine the Covid Inquiry".
The Liberal Democrats said the legal challenge was "a kick in the teeth for bereaved families who've already waited far too long for answers".
Some senior Conservative MPs had urged the government to back down to avoid a lengthy legal battle with the Covid inquiry.
Science minister George Freeman defended the decision to take legal action, while conceding he personally thought a defeat in the courts was likely.
But when speaking during a visit to Moldova earlier, Mr Sunak said he was "confident" in the government's position.
Outlining its grounds for legal action, the Cabinet Office said ministers and officials "should not be required to provide material that is irrelevant to the inquiry's work".
It said "irrelevant material" requested by the inquiry included "references to personal and family information, including illness and disciplinary matters", and "comments of a personal nature about identified or identifiable individuals which are unrelated to Covid-19".
But the danger for the government is that it exposes it to the charge - already levelled by Labour - that ministers are trying to cover something up.
The legal action will test the ability of public inquiries to get hold of messages on WhatsApp, which has become an increasingly popular means of communication between ministers in recent years.
Baroness Hallett has previously warned that a failure to disclose material requested by the inquiry would be a criminal offence.
Jonathan Jones, a former head of the government's legal department, said the Cabinet Office had "a plausible case" but faced "an uphill challenge to overturn what are very wide powers of the inquiry".
He told the BBC the matter could be settled in court "within weeks, if not sooner". | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65782535 |
Sevilla 1-1 Roma (4-1 on pens): Gonzalo Montiel scores winning penalty as La Liga side lift seventh Europa League - BBC Sport | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | null | Sevilla claim a record-extending seventh Europa League title as they beat Roma on penalties at a raucous Puskas Arena in Budapest. | null | Last updated on .From the section European Football
Sevilla claimed a record-extending seventh Europa League title as they beat Roma on penalties at a raucous Puskas Arena in Budapest.
Gonzalo Montiel, who also scored the winning penalty for Argentina in the World Cup final against France, repeated the trick for the Spanish side following a 1-1 draw, with a retaken spot kick after Roger Ibanez and Gianluca Mancini had missed for Roma.
The Spanish side, have now won all seven of the finals they have played in the competition with captain Jesus Navas involved in their first triumph against Middlesbrough in 2006.
Their most recent sees them qualify for next season's Champions League despite finishing outside the top four in the La Liga.
There will be a feeling that it could have been so different for Roma and their manager Jose Mourinho, who had won all five of the previous European finals he had been involved in and guided the club to inaugural Europa Conference League success last term.
Montiel's international teammate Paulo Dybala had deservedly put Roma in front during the first period, racing onto to Italy defender Mancini's incisive pass to expertly steer a low effort past Sevilla goalkeeper Yassine Bounou into the bottom right corner.
However, the Serie A side, who also saw Leonardo Spinazzola test Bounou before the break, relinquished their control of a testy encounter which saw 14 players and coaches, including Mourinho booked.
And Sevilla drew level 10 minutes after the break with Navas' cross from the right, deflecting off the unfortunate Mancini into his own net, as they repeatedly pressed forward for an equaliser.
Roma arguably had the better opportunities to win the contest in normal time with Tammy Abraham and Ibanez unable to convert from close range and Andrea Belotti slicing wide from Lorenzo Pellegrini's clever free-kick.
When Lucas Ocampos went down under a challenge from Ibanez, Sevilla appeared to have been handed a golden opportunity to go ahead but, after initially awarding a penalty, English referee Anthony Taylor overturned his decision following a video assistant referee review.
That set up a tense additional 30 minutes with Chris Smalling heading against the Sevilla crossbar 11 minutes into stoppage time at the end of extra time before the dramatic finale.
• None History for Sevilla as 'tired' Mourinho throws medal into crowd
• None Reaction as Sevilla beat Roma in the Europa League final
Specialists Sevilla get the job done
In a match that had been dubbed the 'The Specialists against The Special One', there was an air of inevitability about Sevilla's latest conquest of Europe's second-tier competition.
While Mourinho's gamble to name Dybala - despite injury concerns - in his starting line-up for the first time since 13 April initially appeared to pay dividends, Sevilla grew stronger as the contest drew on.
But the Argentine's influence and fitness faded before his second-half substitution against a side that have looked transformed under Jose Luis Mendilibar's guidance.
Sevilla's third coach of the campaign has overseen a superb turnaround, helping the club from Andalusia stave off relegation concerns at home and eliminate both Manchester United and Juventus on their way to the final.
Roma, who had won just one of four previous penalty shootouts in European competition, looked nervy from the spot having withdrawn several potential penalty takers including captain Lorenzo Pellegrini, Dybala and Abraham.
But there was a sense of calmness and conviction to Sevilla, who clinically dispatched all four of their efforts.
• None Goal! Sevilla 1(4), Roma 1(1). Gonzalo Montiel (Sevilla) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the bottom left corner.
• None Delay over. They are ready to continue.
• None Penalty saved! Ibañez (Roma) fails to capitalise on this great opportunity, right footed shot saved in the bottom left corner.
• None Goal! Sevilla 1(3), Roma 1(1). Ivan Rakitic (Sevilla) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the bottom left corner.
• None Penalty saved! Gianluca Mancini (Roma) fails to capitalise on this great opportunity, right footed shot saved in the centre of the goal.
• None Goal! Sevilla 1(2), Roma 1(1). Erik Lamela (Sevilla) converts the penalty with a left footed shot to the bottom right corner.
• None Goal! Sevilla 1(1), Roma 1(1). Bryan Cristante (Roma) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the bottom left corner.
• None Goal! Sevilla 1(1), Roma 1. Lucas Ocampos (Sevilla) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the centre of the goal.
• None Attempt missed. Bryan Cristante (Roma) right footed shot from the right side of the six yard box misses to the right following a corner.
• None Chris Smalling (Roma) hits the bar with a header from the left side of the box. Assisted by Nicola Zalewski with a cross following a corner.
• None Ibañez (Roma) wins a free kick on the right wing. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page | http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65752974 |
Lee Rigby: Charity's pride at fundraising by son of killed soldier - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Jack Rigby has raised more than £50,000 for the charity Scotty's Little Soldiers. | Leeds & West Yorkshire | Jack Rigby was only two years old when his father was murdered outside Woolwich Barracks
A charity has praised the young son of murdered soldier Lee Rigby after he raised more than £50,000 for the group.
Jack Rigby, 12, was two years old when his father was murdered by Islamist extremists outside Woolwich Barracks.
Jack, who now lives in Halifax, West Yorkshire, ran 26.2 miles in May for charity Scotty's Little Soldiers.
It helps children grieving the death of a parent who served in the armed forces. Founder Nikki Scott said the charity was "really proud" of Jack.
Mrs Scott set up the organisation a year after the death of her husband Corporal Lee Scott in Afghanistan in 2009.
She said Jack had initially hoped to raise £10,000 - £1,000 for each year since his father's death - to coincide with the 10th anniversary of Lee Rigby's death on 22 May 2013.
Mrs Scott said his efforts had helped raise awareness of the work the charity did with children and young people.
"We are really proud of Jack, he's done such an amazing positive thing at a really tough time," she said.
"Whenever any of our young people fundraise for us it means the world, because it means what we are doing is having a real impact that they want to give back and help others."
The 12-year-old has raised more than £50,000 for the Scotty's Little Soldiers tri-service charity
Mrs Scott said the money would enable the charity to help more children in a similar situation.
"We are there whenever they need us, that might be respite breaks, it might be attending group events with other children or it might be one-to-one emotional support.
"A whole range to make sure they never feel alone."
Mrs Scott said although people might assume children who lost a parent at a young age had no memory, the impact of childhood bereavement "never goes away".
Fusilier Rigby, from Middleton, Greater Manchester, died as a result of multiple cut and stab wounds after he was attacked in London.
He had been returning to his barracks when he was attacked by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale.
Adebolajo was given a whole-life term and Adebowale was jailed for a minimum of 45 years.
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The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-65778807 |
University to sell 'white elephant' New York campus - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Glasgow Caledonian University says a £26m project launched in 2013 has "not reached its potential". | Glasgow & West Scotland | The New York Campus opened in September 2013
A Scottish university that became the first in the UK to open a campus in New York is to end the arrangement.
Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) launched GCNYC in September 2013 but it struggled to attract students and was unable to award degrees until nearly four years after it opened.
GCU said the campus had "not reached its potential" and that the university would look to exit New York.
The project was given £26.5m in loans and grants from the university.
Critics have dubbed the campus a "white elephant" and there have been calls for an inquiry into what went wrong.
A statement from GCU said: "Despite the significant efforts of many staff in the UK and New York in building highly regarded academic programmes, GCNYC has to date not reached its potential.
"Following a discussion at the university court in February, it was agreed that the university would actively seek a partnership with another educational organisation, with a view to the partner ultimately acquiring GCNYC.
"Whilst a partnership is our preferred option for the college, in the event a partnership cannot be established, we will initiate a process to exit from New York."
GCU said it was in talks with "prestigious educational organisations" about partnering in New York and as a result has paused all new student admissions.
GCU's latest accounts show that £23.1m of a loan agreement with GCNYC has been drawn down to date.
In addition, a grant award of £3.4m was made to GCNYC by the university in 2021/22.
The New York campus was formally opened in April 2014 by the then first minister, Alex Salmond, and has attracted a number of high profile speakers and seminars.
When Mr Salmond's replacement, Nicola Sturgeon, visited in June 2015, she described the campus as an "absolutely fantastic development" and praised the "foresight" of university leaders.
The three-year delay in being able to issue degree certificates came because of delays in gaining a licence to do so from the New York authorities.
Labour MSP Jackie Baillie said: "This is an ignominious end to a vanity project encouraged by the SNP government.
"At a time when university staff have felt forced to take industrial action, it is simply unfathomable that this white elephant was still going.
"This is a welcome end to an expensive and doomed project that should go down in history as a guide in how not to run a project of this nature."
• None US campus has no degree students | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-65775935 |
British Airways fined $1.1m by US government - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The US says the airline did not "provide timely refunds to passengers" during Covid. | Business | British Airways has been fined $1.1m (£878,000) by the US government over claims it failed to pay refunds for cancelled flights during the pandemic.
The US Department of Transportation said the airline had not provided "timely refunds to passengers" for abandoned or rescheduled flights to and from the country.
It said it had received more than 1,200 complaints about the airline.
BA rejected the claims, saying it had "acted lawfully at all times".
According to the transport department, from March to November 2020, BA's website instructed consumers to contact the carrier by phone to discuss refund options, including for flights the carrier had cancelled or significantly changed.
However, consumers were unable to get through to customer service agents when calling the carrier for several months during this period because BA failed to maintain adequate functionality of its customer service phone lines , it said.
"There was also no way to submit a refund request through the carrier's website during this period," the department said.
It added that from March to November 2020, misleading information on BA's website had led consumers to inadvertently request travel vouchers instead of refunds.
It said that along with the 1,200 complaints received by the department, BA had received thousands more complaints and refund requests directly from consumers.
The department said the failures had "caused significant challenges and delays in thousands of consumers receiving required refunds".
It added that the fine established a "strong deterrent to future similar unlawful practices".
BA will be credited $550,000 towards the penalty because it paid more than $40m in refunds to customers with non-refundable tickets in 2020 and 2021.
The airline said: "We're very sorry that at the height of the unprecedented pandemic - when we were unfortunately forced to cancel thousands of flights and close some call centres due to government restrictions - our customers experienced slightly longer wait times to reach customer service teams.
"During this period, we acted lawfully at all times and offered customers the flexibility of rebooking travel on different dates, or claiming a refund if their flights were cancelled.
"To date, we have issued more than five million refunds since the start of the pandemic." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65781536 |
What Americans can learn from Denmark on handling debt ceiling crisis - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Only two industrialised nations have debt ceilings - how come only the US fights about it? | US & Canada | In Denmark, the debt ceiling is not a political issue
The high-wire drama of raising the US debt ceiling is making headlines again. Is there a better way? Perhaps Denmark has the answer.
The US Congress is once more arguing about the country's debt ceiling - the limit on how much the government can borrow.
If the two major parties don't agree on lifting the cap in the next few weeks, the US could for the first time in history default on its debt.
A default would send shockwaves through global financial markets and could be disastrous for the US economy, experts believe.
But Republicans, who control the lower chamber of Congress, want spending cuts before they will agree.
The ceiling was introduced more than a century ago and it makes the US something of an outlier in global terms.
Only one other industrialised nation - Denmark - has a formal debt ceiling, but it is handled without the drama and brinkmanship often seen in Washington.
In fact, the Danes' debt ceiling is rarely ever talked about, because it's never even come close to being broken.
Called "gældsloft" in Danish, it was introduced in 1993 as a constitutional requirement.
In 2011 there was a debt ceiling stand-off between congressional Republicans and President Obama
"It's there so that the government cannot just write a blank cheque," said Las Olsen, chief economist at Danske Bank.
Though the American and Danish laws appear similar, they work rather differently.
"[Danish] politicians consider it to be more of a formality. It's not a political issue," Mr Olsen said.
"They [parliament] have already passed all the laws requiring spending and they have also passed the laws about how much tax to collect," he added.
"So it would be a little strange not to allow the government to borrow the difference."
The Danish threshold is set at DKK 2 trillion ($284bn, £237.7bn). For a small country that's relatively high, and means there's scope to take out state loans without repeatedly hitting it.
"The total level of state debt at this point is DKK 645 billion. So that's a long way off," said Mr Olsen.
The ceiling has only been lifted once, when it was doubled in 2010. This followed the 2008 financial crisis and the move was widely backed by Danish political parties.
"All of a sudden the government really did have to borrow a lot of money in a short period of time to support the economy," said Mr Olsen.
In comparison, the American ceiling has been raised on 78 separate occasions since 1960 - 49 times under a Republican president and 29 times under a Democrat.
Danish politics is less polarised than in the US and there are more than a dozen different parties with seats in parliament.
Mr Olsen said that, while Danish politicians often disagree about what the budget should be spent on, they're mostly aligned on how to manage it.
"They broadly agree on the framework, which is that finances should be sustainable and that expenses should be paid for," said Mr Olsen. "That brings a different kind of political discussion than maybe you see in the US."
One major way in which Denmark's scenario differs from the US, is that its debt has generally been shrinking. The government ended 2022 with a budget surplus, and used the money to pay down a large chunk of its borrowing.
"There is actually a lot of saving going on," Mr Olsen explained. "It's a policy aimed at making sure that the economic situation is sustainable in the long term, when we know there's a lot of pensioners and we'll be living a lot longer."
THE POLITICS: A nightmare of its own making
THE ECONOMY: What happens when the US hits debt ceiling?
The US national debt has been growing since the early 1980s, with the government accumulating debts far bigger than the US earns in a given year. It surpassed the size of the country's GDP in 2013 and has now exceeded $31tn (£26tn).
Many other countries opt for a different method, and look at debt as a proportion of GDP instead. This shows how much a country owes relative to the size of its economy, and can give a better sense of a country's ability to repay its borrowing.
In fact, EU member states have agreed to keep debt to less than 60% of GDP - though not always in practice.
Denmark is unique because it has both a debt ceiling and has also committed to the EU cap. "It's a much more meaningful constraint on governments," said Mr Olsen.
So what would it take for the US to be more Danish in its approach?
Extracting the politics from the American debt limit fight won't happen any time soon because it's become a partisan ritual, says Jacob Kirkegaard, a non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
He supports getting rid of the US debt ceiling, which he argues is more of a "nuisance" than a sensible tool that constrains government spending.
But he thinks neither party would risk doing it because they risk being vulnerable to the charge that they don't care about balancing the nation's books. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64878254 |
Amazon to pay $25m over child privacy violations - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The online giant is also penalised for allowing Ring doorbell workers access to customer recordings. | Technology | Amazon is to pay $25m (£20m) to settle allegations that it violated children's privacy rights with its Alexa voice assistant.
The company agreed to pay the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) after it was accused of failing to delete Alexa recordings at the request of parents.
It was found to have kept hold of sensitive data for years.
Amazon's doorbell camera unit Ring will also pay out after giving employees unrestricted access to customers' data.
Ring will pay $5.8m to authorities, according to a filing in federal court in the District of Columbia.
According to the FTC complaint regarding Alexa, Amazon "prominently and repeatedly assured its users, including parents, that they could delete voice recordings collected" by the system.
But the company did not do this, keeping data for years and using it unlawfully to help improve its Alexa algorithm, the complaint said.
In a statement, Samuel Levine, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, accused Amazon of "misleading parents, keeping children's recordings indefinitely, and flouting parents' deletion requests".
The company "sacrificed privacy for profits", he added.
Similarly, the FTC said Ring - which Amazon bought in 2018 - allowed "thousands of employees and contractors" to watch recordings of customers' private spaces.
They were able to view and download customers' sensitive video data for their own purposes, the body said.
Amazon told the BBC in a statement that "Ring promptly addressed the issues at hand on its own years ago, well before the FTC began its inquiry".
But according to the complaint, one employee viewed thousands of video recordings belonging to female users of Ring cameras that "surveilled intimate spaces in their homes such as their bathrooms or bedrooms".
The employee was only stopped once their actions were spotted by a colleague, it said.
"Ring's disregard for privacy and security exposed consumers to spying and harassment," Mr Levine said. "The FTC's order makes clear that putting profit over privacy doesn't pay."
Amazon said: "While we disagree with the FTC's claims regarding both Alexa and Ring, and deny violating the law, these settlements put these matters behind us."
The company added that it will continue to invent more privacy features on behalf of customers. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-65772154 |
Cannich wildfire causes extensive damage to Corrimony nature reserve - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | RSPB Scotland says ground-nesting birds have lost chicks and eggs to the blaze near Cannich. | Highlands & Islands | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. RSPB Scotland say the Cannich wildfire has damaged a nature reserve, with many birds losing chicks or eggs.
A wildfire that has been burning in the Highlands since Saturday has caused extensive damage to a nature reserve, according to RSPB Scotland.
The charity said many ground-nesting birds, including black grouse, had lost chicks or eggs in the incident near Cannich, south of Inverness.
Hundreds of native trees planted to regenerate habitats at RSPB's Corrimony reserve have also been destroyed.
Smoke from the fire was detected by Nasa satellites earlier this week.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) was first called to the blaze just before 13:00 on Sunday.
It was brought under control on Wednesday, but more than 20 firefighters remain at the scene dealing with "deep-seated hotspots".
RSPB Scotland said wildlife and habitat had been lost to the fire
RSPB Scotland said it had still to fully assess the impact of the blaze on wildlife.
The reserve's Simon McLaughlin said he had found fast-moving species such as spiders and lizards had survived.
But others, including frogs, had been found dead.
RSPB Scotland thanked the dozens of firefighters and estate workers involved in the effort to extinguish the flames.
The charity said: "The damage to Corrimony is extensive, and made even more devastating by the impact on many ground-nesting birds who have lost their chicks and eggs."
Earlier this week, Nasa satellite images showed smoke from the wildfire drifting 12-mile (20km) west towards Loch Ness.
People living near the fire were told to keep doors and windows of their homes closed as precaution against the smoke.
The wildfire has been burning for several days
A plume of smoke, in the centre of the image, could be seen drifting 12 miles towards Loch Ness
Latest available satellite data suggests the area affected could be smaller than previously feared.
SFRS had estimated flames had burned through a 30 sq mile (80 sq km) area of moor and woodland, which would make it the largest wildfire seen in the UK.
The service said it was now estimated to be five square miles (15 sq km) in size.
Wildfire analysts said latest available satellite images suggested the "monumental" firefighting effort had contained the incident.
SFRS group commander Niall MacLennan said: "This has been a challenging large-scale fire, which has no doubt impacted on the rural community here.
"Our crews, who have been working tirelessly since Sunday to tackle this wildfire, will remain at the scene until it's made safe."
The effort to control the spread of the fire has been praised
At the height of the incident earlier this week, SFRS had nine appliances and their crews at the scene. They were helped by estate workers, including gamekeepers, RSPB staff and waterbombing by helicopters.
Two firefighters were injured during the operation after their all-terrain vehicle overturned. They were flown to hospital and discharged following treatment.
Speaking at the Scottish Parliament, Community Safety Minister Siobhian Brown said wildfires posed a threat to life and the environment.
She said: "I thank all the firefighters and others who are tackling this wildfire.
"The weather and the conditions at this time of year lend themselves to fires starting easily and spreading quickly.
"The smallest fire can spread and devastate entire communities, hillsides, livestock, farmland, wildlife, protected land and sites of special interest."
The wildfire affected a large area of land near Cannich
In a tweet, wildfire analyst Dr Thomas Smith, an associate professor at London School of Economics, described a "monumental" effort to bring the fire under control.
Analysis of the latest available satellite imagery by Dr Smith and others suggested the damage covered a smaller area than previously thought.
Michael Bruce, of Aberdeenshire-based Firebreak Services Ltd, said a satellite used by the European Forest Fire Information System and EU's Copernicus programme indicated 2,426-acres (982 ha) was involved.
But he added it could amount to 2,718 acres (1,100 ha) because of hotspots outside the main area of the wildfire.
Mr Bruce said: "It was a tremendous successful joint effort by SFRS and local landowners who managed to contain the fire to this size.
"It is always difficult to establish fire size quickly, with smoke and further spread happening, and the focus of the people at the scene is on tackling the fire." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-65777331 |
Belgorod: Russia blames Ukraine for shelling inside border - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The defence ministry claims it has also thwarted attempts by Kyiv to "invade" the Belgorod region. | Europe | Drone footage released by Freedom of Russia Legion shows what they claim is destruction of Russian military targets in Belgorod region
The Russian region of Belgorod has again come under attack from across the Ukrainian border, with at least eight people reportedly hurt in shelling.
Russia's defence ministry has also claimed it thwarted other attempts by Ukraine to "invade" the region.
Kyiv has not commented on the allegations but has denied involvement in previous attacks across the border.
The latest strikes come more than a week after one of the most significant cross-border raids since the war began.
Belgorod's governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said Ukraine's armed forces shelled several districts on Thursday, damaging buildings. No fatalities have been reported but Mr Gladkov said hundreds of families would be evacuated once the situation became calmer.
Mr Gladkov added that as a result, some school exams in Shebekino had been cancelled and the authorities were now devising a way to allow students to secure university places without sitting them.
He also said that there had been an explosion in Belgorod city, which was thought to have been caused by a drone. Two people were injured in that attack.
Alongside the shelling, Russia's defence ministry has claimed its servicemen in the region repelled several attacks.
It said in a statement on Thursday evening that more than 50 Ukrainian "terrorists", four armoured combat vehicles, a Grad multiple rocket launcher and a pickup truck were destroyed. It has not been possible to independently verify the reports.
There have been conflicting reports about violence on the border.
BBC Verify has seen videos from two pro-Ukrainian paramilitary groups, the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps, announcing raids into Russia's territory.
The town of Shebekino in Belgorod region was among those shelled on Thursday
Despite this, local officials have denied reports of a Ukrainian troop breakthrough in Shebekino adding that the situation remains difficult and that the "shelling is ongoing".
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin was aware of the situation in Belgorod and criticised the international committee for failing to condemn Ukraine.
There have been a spate of attacks inside Russia in recent weeks.
Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of trying to frighten Russians following drone attacks in the capital, Moscow.
Kyiv has denied involvement in any of the attacks.
But the US is investigating whether any of its military equipment was used in the earlier incursion in Belgorod on 22 May and said it did not support any attack on Russian soil.
Meanwhile, three people have died during another attack on Ukraine's capital, Kyiv. An 11-year-old girl is reported to be among the dead.
It is the fourth attack on the city this week and comes after 17 strikes were launched on Kyiv throughout May.
It comes as the country's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, again called for Ukraine to be allowed to join Nato and the EU.
He was visiting Moldova for the European Political Community summit, where he also met European Commission President Ursula von Der Leyen.
He said their talks touched on security guarantees for Ukraine while it's waiting to join Nato. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65779989 |
Geraint Davies: Suspended MP faces formal complaint over behaviour - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Labour suspended Geraint Davies earlier after allegations of sexual misconduct reported by Politico. | UK Politics | A formal complaint has been submitted to Labour about the behaviour of suspended MP Geraint Davies.
Earlier, the Labour Party said he had been suspended following "incredibly serious" allegations of "completely unacceptable behaviour".
According to news website Politico, he is accused of subjecting younger colleagues to unwanted sexual attention.
The MP for Swansea West told Politico he did not recognise the allegations.
"If I have inadvertently caused offence to anyone, then I am naturally sorry as it is important that we share an environment of mutual and equal respect for all," he said.
The BBC has contacted Mr Davies for comment, but has so far received no response.
Mr Davies has been administratively suspended from the party pending an investigation into the allegations.
This means he can not sit as a Labour MP while the investigation is ongoing, although he remains the Member of Parliament for Swansea West, and will sit as an independent.
Politico, which first reported the allegations, said it had spoken to more than 20 people who worked with Mr Davies in Parliament, including serving MPs, and current and former Labour Party staff.
The news site said five women had claimed Mr Davies had subjected them to unwanted sexual attention, both physical and verbal.
The allegations, which go back at least five years, include excessive drinking, as well as sexual comments and unwanted touching of younger women, according to the website.
Some of the individuals said they had discussed his behaviour with Labour whips, who are in charge of party discipline.
Politico later reported a different woman had submitted a formal complaint to the party. The BBC has confirmed a formal complaint has been made.
Earlier, a Labour Party spokesperson said: "These are incredibly serious allegations of completely unacceptable behaviour.
"We strongly encourage anyone with a complaint to come forward to the Labour party's investigation.
"Any complainant will have access to an independent support service who provide confidential and independent guidance and advice from external experts throughout the process."
The BBC has been told Labour is undertaking a review into the party's complaints system, following recent reports of allege misconduct.
Mr Davies, who first became an MP in 1997, has sat on several Commons committees including the Welsh Affairs and Environment Committee.
Until 2005 he was the MP for Croydon Central and has also served as leader of the south London borough's council.
In 2010 he became MP for Swansea West, where he currently has a majority of 8,116.
The allegations of inappropriate behaviour are the latest to emerge from Westminster, in what has been dubbed the "Pestminster scandal".
Both Labour and Conservative MPs have faced accusations which have led to suspensions in recent years. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65774184 |
Diddy says Diageo neglected his tequila due to race - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The artist says the business relationship with the drinks giant was "tainted by racial prejudices". | Business | Sean "Diddy" Combs at the 2023 Met Gala in New York earlier in May
Rapper Sean Combs, known as Diddy, has accused drinks giant Diageo of breaking the terms of their business partnership and neglecting the tequila brand they bought together because he is black.
In a complaint filed in New York, he said the company invested in competing brands, while depriving DeLeon Tequila the same level of support.
He also said Diageo limited the drinks' distribution to "urban" neighbourhoods.
Diageo denied the allegations and said it would defend itself "vigorously".
"This is a business dispute, and we are saddened that Mr Combs has chosen to recast this matter as anything other than that," a spokesman for the company said in a statement.
"Our steadfast commitment to diversity within our company and the communities we serve is something we take very seriously."
The lawsuit comes after years of partnership between UK-based Diageo and Mr Combs, who rose to fame as a music executive and rapper in the 1990s before branching out into acting and other business ventures.
Diageo, owner of brands such as Johnnie Walker, Guinness and Tanqueray, approached him to help market the company's Ciroc vodka in 2007.
Together they bought DeLeon Tequila in 2013, but the complaint accused Diageo of quickly falling short of its commitments for distribution, investment and brand positioning.
Mr Combs' company, Combs Wines & Spirits, said there was a pattern of "racial typecasting", pointing to disputes that Diageo has had with other black business partners.
"This case is not an ordinary contract dispute in which a party chooses to disregard its contractual promises due to greed and profit," the firm said in the filing.
"Rather, and similar to the realities experienced by many people of colour in the United States, Diageo's treatment of its business relationship with Mr Combs was tainted by racial prejudices."
The lawsuit cites a 2019 conversation in which a Diageo executive allegedly said Mr Combs's brands would be more widespread had he been "Martha Stewart", among other decisions.
The DeLeon brand is also currently sold in less than 4% of possible outlets compared with more than a third for Diageo's competing Casamigos and Don Julio tequilas, the complaint said.
Despite being repeatedly confronted over the issues, Diageo failed to repair the situation, Combs Wine & Spirits alleged.
It said Mr Combs intends to take separate legal action to request billions of dollars in damages and has asked the court to order the firm to "provide the equal treatment that it has contractually promised".
Diaego said it was "disappointed our efforts to resolve this business dispute amicably have been ignored and that Mr. Combs has chosen to damage a productive and valued partnership".
"For more than 15 years, we've had a productive and mutually beneficial relationship with Mr. Combs on various business ventures, making significant investments that have resulted in financial success for all involved," the company said.
"While we respect Mr. Combs as an artist and entrepreneur, his allegations lack merit, and we are confident the facts will show that he has been treated fairly." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65770119 |
Deadline passes in row over WhatsApp release to Covid inquiry - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The government is in a stand-off with the Covid inquiry over Boris Johnson's texts to officials and ministers. | UK Politics | A deadline has passed for the government to hand over unredacted material to the Covid inquiry, amid a row over WhatsApp messages.
It was given until 4pm to disclose messages between Boris Johnson and his advisers during the pandemic, as well as his diaries and notebooks.
It has refused to disclose some of the material, arguing it is not relevant to the inquiry's work.
But the inquiry's boss says deciding what is relevant should be her job.
It is not yet clear what will happen next. The stand-off could potentially lead to a legal battle between the inquiry and Cabinet Office, the government department that supports the prime minister.
There has been no word from the inquiry or the Cabinet Office over whether more material has been disclosed.
Speaking to reporters at a summit in Moldova, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the government was confident in its position and was "considering next steps".
The inquiry, set up in May 2021, is investigating the government's handling of the pandemic and is due to begin public hearings in two weeks.
Mr Johnson has urged the Cabinet Office to hand the material to the inquiry in full without redactions, adding that he would do so himself "if asked".
In a statement on Wednesday, the former prime minister said he had now given the department all the documents, adding it had had "access" to the material for several months.
The Cabinet Office - which had earlier told the inquiry it didn't have all the WhatsApps or notebooks - then said officials were assessing them.
The material sought by the inquiry includes WhatsApp messages on Mr Johnson's devices from a group chat set up to discuss the pandemic response.
It has also asked to see WhatsApp messages on his devices he exchanged with a host of politicians, including his successor Rishi Sunak, as well as various civil servants, including the UK's top civil servant Simon Case.
It has also asked for the former prime minister's diaries, as well as 24 notebooks in which he made contemporaneous notes.
But in a challenge to the request, the Cabinet Office said the WhatsApp threads contained some messages that are "unambiguously irrelevant" to the inquiry's remit.
It said these included discussion of "entirely separate" policy areas, diary arrangements unconnected to Covid, references to disciplinary matters, and "comments of a personal nature" about individuals.
Disclosing the messages, it added, could breach individuals' right to privacy and undermine the ability of ministers to discuss policy matters in the future.
However, crossbench peer Baroness Hallett, who chairs the inquiry, said the information it had requested was "potentially relevant" to its task of investigating government decision-making.
Examining "superficially unrelated" political matters might be necessary, she argued, to understand the broader context in which decisions were made.
She revealed that material redacted, or blanked out, by the Cabinet Office includes chats about relations between the UK and Scottish government, and the way in which WhatsApp itself should be used by ministers to discuss government policy.
"These are matters that I and my team are better placed to assess than any document provider," she added.
Baroness Hallett has previously warned that a failure to disclose the material the inquiry has requested would be a criminal offence.
The Cabinet Office has questioned whether the inquiry has the power to request "entirely personal" WhatsApp messages, and is reportedly considering asking a judge to review whether the demands are legal.
The matter has been seen as a litmus test of the ability of public inquiries to get hold of messages on WhatsApp, which has become an increasingly popular means of communication within Westminster in recent years.
However, some senior Conservative MPs have urged the government to back down to avoid a lengthy legal showdown.
William Wragg, chairman of a parliamentary committee on constitutional affairs, said on Wednesday: "If the inquiry requests documents and info - then whoever it has asked should comply."
There has been friction between Mr Sunak's government and Mr Johnson over the Cabinet Office's decision to refer him to police over further potential Covid rule breaches during the pandemic.
The Cabinet Office said it made the referral following a review of his official diary by government lawyers as part of the Covid inquiry.
The former PM has dismissed claims of any breaches as a "politically motivated stitch-up". | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65775321 |
Jane McDonald replaces Phillip Schofield as British Soap Awards host - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Singer and presenter Jane McDonald replaces Phillip Schofield as host and is best known as a singer and presenter. | Entertainment & Arts | Jane McDonald said hosting the awards was a "dream come true"
Jane McDonald will replace Philip Schofield as the host of this weekend's British Soap Awards.
She is best known as a singer, Loose Women panellist and presenter of Bafta-winning Channel 5 series Cruising With Jane McDonald.
McDonald will host Saturday's show in Salford before it is on ITV on Tuesday.
Schofield stepped down from his presenting commitments on the channel after admitting to having an affair with a younger staff member at ITV.
The soap awards will see five dramas - Coronation Street, Doctors, EastEnders, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks are up for the biggest prizes.
McDonald posted on Instagram the hosting job was a "dream come true".
"This year I've been honoured to be mentioned in Corrie, EastEnders and Emmerdale... I can't wait to see all our wonderful soap nominees and celebrate all their hard work with them," she added.
Phillip Schofield left his role on This Morning last week following reports of a rift with Holly Willoughby
Schofield, said last week: "I am painfully conscious that I have lied to my employers at ITV, to my colleagues and friends, to my agents, to the media and therefore the public and most importantly of all to my family.
"I am so very, very sorry, as I am for having been unfaithful to my wife."
ITV has now asked a barrister to lead a review into its handling of a relationship between Schofield and his colleague. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65775239 |
Council orders removal of 'gaudy' Pittenweem witch mural - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The mural by street artist Rogue One appeared on the side of a pub in Pittenweem last Halloween. | Edinburgh, Fife & East Scotland | The witch mural in Pittenweem will be removed
A Scottish council has ordered the removal of a giant mural by a renowned street artist.
The gable-end painting of a witch was created by Rogue One who has painted many of Glasgow's giant street scenes.
However the mural which appeared on the side of the Larachmhor Tavern in Pittenweem, Fife, last Halloween - did not have planning permission.
A retrospective planning application was rejected by Fife Council's north east planning committee on Wednesday.
Councillors called it "gaudy and inaccurate" and said it must be removed.
The painting of a witch with a hooked nose and warts along the Mid Shore harbour will also be subject to enforcement powers to make sure it is removed.
Planning officers said the mural was "not only inaccurate but also gaudy in its use of colour and stylization".
The village in the East Neuk has long been associated with witches and witchcraft. Popular witch tours ran in the village for several years.
However, Fife Council felt the mural was "based on historically inaccurate false narratives perpetuated by popular media".
They also rejected it on other grounds.
The mural covers the gable end wall of a 19th Century Category C listed building overlooking the narrow School Wynd. It sits within the Pittenweem conservation area amongst a row of B and C listed properties.
"It is in a fairly prominent part of the harbour area, which is quite a popular area," planning officer Chris Smith told councillors. "The wynd itself is widely used. Within the context of the narrow wynd, the mural is considered to be overbearing and inappropriate.
"The typical palette of colours along the harbour is fairly muted and neutral, and we'd be introducing a broad range of gaudy colours to a fairly neutral environment," he said.
Pittenweem is in the East Neuk of Fife
Historic Environment Scotland also advised that the application of paint to unpainted historic walls could cause "considerable damage in the long term by preventing the evaporation of moisture from the underlying fabric."
Artist Bobby McNamara, aka Rogue One, told BBC Scotland he enjoyed painting the mural because it was so different from his normal projects.
He said: "The owner of the property wanted the witch mural as Pittenweem has a witch history, but a few locals did moan a bit about it being mean and ugly and they'd rather not expose their village witch history so much.
"I get that. It's understandable. But the owners wanted it, and I enjoyed doing something edgy and scary.
"I always do beautiful and nice. It's refreshing to be different. It is what it is." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-65776385 |
Moment climber found in rare Everest ‘death zone’ rescue - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | null | A Nepali sherpa guide carried the man on his back for six hours during the "very rare" high-altitude rescue. | null | Nepali guide Gelje Sherpa found a Malaysian climber shivering and clutching a rope in the area of Mount Everest called the "death zone", where temperatures can dip to -30C.
He carried the climber down from 8,500m above sea level over the course of six hours.
Nepali tourism official Bigyan Koirala said it was "almost impossible to rescue climbers at that altitude" and that it was a "very rare operation". | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-65773723 |
Do train strikes still have any impact? - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Rail workers have walked out on the 29th day of industrial action but are travellers adapting? | Business | Friday marks the 29th day of rail strikes since the current set of disputes began.
Members of the rail unions have been regularly bringing much of the network to a halt for nearly a year.
The leisure industry has been hard-hit as people cancel trips and holidays, or avoid city centre shops, pubs and restaurants.
The RMT union, whose members are walking out on strike on Friday, claims that the strikes have cost the UK economy £5bn, with the leisure sector taking the biggest hit from lost sales.
But with the majority of rail commuters able to work from home, the impact elsewhere has been limited.
To understand how the UK has adapted to almost a year of rail strikes, take a look at the experience of Colin Bezant.
A cycling-mad 58-year-old, train strikes don't stop him from doing his job as a consultant helping companies manage big IT projects.
He either works from home or cycles around 50 miles from his home in Basingstoke to the London office or to his client's office in Oxford.
But it completely messes up his weekend travels to cycling events around the country. He had booked a train on Friday to get to Carlisle ahead of a 600km cycle event.
Cyclist Colin Bezant can hop on his bike to work but train strikes mess up his weekends
The train he booked was cancelled, because of the strike by members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, which is expected to put a halt to half of Friday's scheduled trains.
He can't depend on getting space for his bike on the trains that are running. So he'll be getting up at 07:00 to drive 300 miles instead.
The leisure industry has protested the loudest about the impact of train strikes.
"We've seen time and time again that rail strikes put a significant dampener on any sales as visitors are deterred from booking visits or eating and drinking out," Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UK Hospitality, said in a statement.
The industry group reckons strikes this week, during the half-term school holiday, will cost the sector £132m, bringing the total impact on the sector to an "eye-watering" £3.25bn.
Having to cancel leisure activities was by far the most frequently mentioned impact of the strikes, according to the most recent study from the Office for National Statistics.
Businesses that are in stations obviously suffer particularly. The ONS tracks weekly sales from 400 Pret a Manger sandwich shops around the country, and the branches in stations see a noticeable dip in sales on strike weeks.
And retailers were acutely affected by the wave of strikes in the key shopping days ahead of Christmas last year.
But the impact of strikes on people getting to work is relatively limited, the ONS's work suggests.
Only one in 10 people actually travel to work by train, according to a different ONS survey.
And of those who do travel by train, 70% said they could work from home.
The rest could get to work by other means - though not necessarily a 50-mile bike ride - and very few respondents said they couldn't work at all because of the train strike.
Speaking to the BBC, the RMT's assistant general secretary John Leach said: "We regret the inconvenience caused by industrial action.
"We would much rather be doing what we do every other day of the year, which is keeping Britain moving, our members coming to work to do that. It's an obvious regret but it's also our responsibility to represent our people, our members, and we will never apologise for doing that."
Rail strikes have had much less impact since the signallers and other Network Rail staff agreed a pay deal to end their campaign. When the signallers joined the strikes, up to 90% of trains would be cancelled.
Train strikes will affect the Epsom Derby this weekend, as well as the FA Cup final at Wembley
The sector most hurt by the strikes may in fact be the railway industry itself.
Mr Bezant says the strikes, and cancellations caused by engineering works, have shaken his faith in the rail network.
"I expect that any events I book in the future, I will consider driving. There's not much point trusting the trains. It will change the way I travel," he says.
Even if the strikes were resolved tomorrow, he would still be uncertain. "It has been going on for so long. It will affect me for quite some time I think."
He estimates the train journeys he has not made because of strikes add up to around £700 - lost revenue for an industry that is already in a serious financial condition.
The Rail Delivery Group, which represents the train operating companies, reckons the dispute has cost the rail industry around £580m so far, a sum which increases with every new day of strike action. The bill is ultimately met by the government, which now picks up the tab for any shortfall in ticket sales.
And Mr Bezant is unlikely to be the only one who will take some time to regain his faith in the railways, even when the disputes are over.
How are you affected by the latest train strikes? You can share your experiences by emailing [email protected].
Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:
If you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at [email protected]. Please include your name, age and location with any submission. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65779925 |
Ukraine war: Russia blames shelling inside border town on Kyiv - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Shelling in the Russian region of Belgorod wounds eight people and strikes in Kyiv kill three people, officials say. | Europe | For Ukraine, the answer is obvious. Yes, because once it is inside the protective shelter of the Western alliance then any future attacks by Russia would oblige the whole of Nato to come to its defence - with troops, not just equipment.
The former US Army Commander in Europe, Lt.Gen Ben Hodges, told the BBC: "Europe will be safer with Ukraine in Nato. Russia won’t attack Ukraine once it’s in Nato".
He said the coming Nato summit in Vilnius would be a huge failure of credibility if there was no clear message about the inevitability of Ukraine joining Nato.
But on the other side of the argument, this would raise the stakes dramatically. What if Ukraine’s future Nato membership failed to deter Russian aggression and conflict erupted on its borders?
That would mean Nato was then at war with Russia, with all the accompanying risks of nuclear escalation.
Russian nationalists, including President Putin, already consider Nato's eastwards expansion to be an intolerable provocation.
It’s hard to predict how Moscow would react to Europe’s second largest nation, and a place some consider to be a part of Russia, joining an alliance that it now views as an implacable enemy. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-65774993 |
BHP: Mining giant says it underpaid workers for 13 years - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Australia's BHP said the leave and allowance 'errors' will cost the company up to $280m. | Business | Australian mining giant BHP says it underpaid current and former workers across the country for 13 years.
Around 28,500 employees received less holiday than they were entitled to, a review conducted by the firm found.
Meanwhile, 400 workers did not get additional allowances "due to an error with the employment entity."
BHP says it has reported the incident to the authorities and the errors will cost the company up to $280m (£225m) before taxes.
Some affected employees had their leave incorrectly deducted on Australian public holidays, the company found. As a result they were owed a total of six days of leave on average.
"We are sorry to all current and former employees impacted by these errors. This is not good enough and falls short of the standards we expect at BHP," Geraldine Slattery, BHP's Australia president, said.
"We are working to rectify and remediate these issues, with interest, as quickly as possible," she added.
The firm also said it has commissioned a review of its payroll systems. It added that it would provide an update on its investigations during its full-year earnings call in August.
BHP, which is headquartered in Melbourne, is the world's biggest miner.
It has around 80,000 employees and contract workers at sites including the Escondida mine in Chile, which is the largest copper mine in the world.
As well as its shares being listed in Australia, the company was part of the UK's blue chip FTSE 100 index for around a decade.
In January 2022, the firm took its shares off the London market after coming under pressure from some investors to simplify its corporate structure.
Supporters of the move argued that it would make it easier for BHP to raise money, do deals and return money to shareholders. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65773133 |
Debt advisor referral fees banned by regulator - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The FCA is banning fees that debt advisors receive for referring people to debt solution companies. | Business | Debt advisors will no longer be allowed to receive a fee for referring people to debt solution companies.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) banned the fees after finding some companies were putting them ahead of customers' best interests.
The average fee advisors received for an individual voluntary arrangement (IVAs) referral in 2019-2020 was £940.
A homeless client was recommended an IVA costing £6,000, but could have been debt-free for £90, the FCA found.
Citizens Advice said banning referral fees was "a big step towards tackling the way some firms prey on and profit from people struggling with debt".
The FCA said the ban applied to "debt packagers" which are regulated providers of debt advice, who typically do not offer debt solutions themselves. They will no longer be able to receive referral fees paid by debt solution companies.
For some people, there is little or no chance of paying off debts, and so they may have to consider some form of personal insolvency.
An individual voluntary arrangement (IVA) - is an agreement with creditors to pay debt.
The individual agrees to make regular affordable payments to an insolvency practitioner, who will divide this money between creditors. At the end of an IVA any unsecured debt left is written off.
Debt Relief Orders (DRO) freeze debt repayments and interest for 12 months if the money owed is less than £30,000 and the individual does not own a property. In that time, creditors cannot recover their money without the court's permission. At the end of the 12 months the debt is written off.
A typical IVA can cost anything up to £3,600 over a customer's lifetime while DROs can be less than £100.
The regulator said this business model "incentivises bad advice" and meant that companies recommend options that make them more money, rather than what is in the customer's best interest.
The FCA said it had seen evidence of debt packagers appearing to manipulate customers' details so that they meet the criteria for IVAs and using persuasive language to promote products without explaining the risks involved.
In some of the worst cases identified, the FCA found evidence of customers in financial hardship who were recommended solutions which caused more problems.
One customer was recommended an IVA by a debt packager when a different solution would have been more suitable. This cost them an extra £4,710 compared with a DRO and meant it would take five years longer to become debt free, the FCA said.
Matthew Upton, acting executive director of advocacy and policy at Citizens Advice said: "Inaccurate or misleading advice from providers promoting Individual Voluntary Agreements can push people further into hardship and further away from a lasting solution to their problems."
He called on the government to bring all pre-IVA advice under the regulation of the FCA, "so that people can be sure it's the right solution for them".
Sheldon Mills, executive director of consumers and competition at the FCA, said: "Good quality debt advice is vital in helping people out of financial difficulty and poor advice can have a devastating impact on those who are already struggling."
Existing debt packager firms will need to develop a new way of doing business by October this year or face regulatory action, the regulator said.
The ban comes into effect immediately for new entrants to the debt packager market. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65779455 |
Boris Johnson says he has handed over Covid WhatsApps - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The head of the pandemic inquiry is demanding that the government releases the unredacted messages. | UK Politics | Mr Johnson's spokesperson said the Cabinet Office has had access to the unredacted documents for "months"
Former prime minister Boris Johnson says he has given the UK government all the WhatsApp messages and notebooks demanded by the Covid-19 inquiry.
Mr Johnson is urging the government to hand the material to the inquiry in full without redactions.
The inquiry, which begins public hearings in two weeks, is investigating how ministers handled the pandemic.
The government has so far refused to hand over material it does not consider relevant.
The Covid inquiry has given the Cabinet Office - the department that supports the prime minister in running the government - until 16:00 BST on Thursday to disclose all of the information it has requested.
The Cabinet Office has argued that ministers must have the right to discuss policies in private and says a leading lawyer is in the process of deciding what is relevant to the inquiry.
But the inquiry's chairwoman, crossbench peer Baroness Hallett, said it was her role, not that of the government, to decide what was relevant.
Lord Saville - who chaired the Bloody Sunday inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday in Londonderry on 30 January 1972 - said Lady Hallett had a "duty" to do a thorough job in looking into the Covid response.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said: "Who is to decide what is relevant or not? In my view - prima facie at least - its Lady Hallett.
"I cant see any downside to her as a very senior and respected judge seeing material that would otherwise be private," Lord Saville said.
The government has said it will not hand over "unambiguously irrelevant material" - as judged by its lawyers.
The standoff could lead to a legal battle between the Cabinet Office and the inquiry, with the courts deciding what material is made available.
Some senior Conservative MPs have urged the government to back down to avoid a lengthy legal showdown.
William Wragg, chairman of a parliamentary committee on constitutional affairs, told the BBC: "If the inquiry requests documents and info - then whoever it has asked should comply."
Mr Johnson's spokesman has said the former PM would hand over the material directly to the Covid inquiry if asked.
Cabinet Office sources have stressed that individuals are at liberty to share any information with the inquiry team, so Mr Johnson could choose to hand things over directly.
The exception, they say, are documents such as government diaries which they argue any government would need to look at for national security reasons.
Mr Johnson's spokesperson has claimed that the Cabinet Office has had access to all these unredacted documents for "months", but has said the former PM handed over more material on Wednesday.
"While Mr Johnson understands the government's position, and does not seek to contradict it, he is perfectly happy for the inquiry to have access to this material in whatever form it requires," the spokesman said.
The Cabinet Office said it had received the material from Mr Johnson and "officials are looking at it".
The material includes 24 notebooks with contemporaneous notes, as well as his diaries and WhatsApp messages between Mr Johnson and cabinet ministers, advisers and senior civil servants.
The inquiry said on Tuesday it had been told the Cabinet Office did not have access to all the information it had been asked for.
Cabinet Office sources say the reason for this, contrary to what Mr Johnson has claimed, is because the former PM was previously working with lawyers employed by the government who were working through his notebooks, diaries and WhatsApp messages.
But they say when Mr Johnson cut ties with those lawyers, the Cabinet Office lost access to those documents.
The BBC has been told the Cabinet Office legal team visited Mr Johnson's office to inspect the notebooks.
The Liberal Democrats urged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to submit the material requested by the inquiry and to stop using Mr Johnson "as an excuse to avoid handing over vital evidence".
There has been friction between Mr Sunak's government and Mr Johnson over the Cabinet Office's decision to refer him to police over further potential Covid rule breaches during the pandemic.
The Cabinet Office said it made the referral following a review of his official diary by government lawyers as part of the Covid inquiry.
The former PM has dismissed claims of any breaches as a "politically motivated stitch-up". | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65770586 |
Armie Hammer: US actor will not be charged with sexual assault - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The US actor faced an accusation of rape an allegations he sent a string of explicit messages online. | Entertainment & Arts | Hammer has appeared in Rebecca, Call Me By Your Name and Death on the Nile
US actor Armie Hammer will not be charged over allegations of sexual assault, prosecutors have confirmed.
The Social Network star was accused two years ago of raping a woman in Los Angeles in 2017.
It was also alleged the 36-year-old sent a string of explicit messages on social media.
Hammer said he is "very grateful" to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, following its decision not to charge him.
The woman who accused the actor of rape, known as Effie, said she was "disappointed" with the decision not to prosecute him.
Hammer said he was looking forward to "beginning what will be a long, difficult process of putting my life back together now that my name is cleared".
The actor, who has also appeared in Call Me By Your Name, Rebecca and Death On The Nile, had denied all criminal allegations against him.
On Wednesday, the district attorney's office said prosecutors had conducted an "extremely thorough review" into the allegations, but that there was "insufficient evidence" to charge Hammer.
Tiffiny Blacknell, director of the bureau of communications, said: "Sexual assault cases are often difficult to prove, which is why we assign our most experienced prosecutors to review them.
"In this case, those prosecutors conducted an extremely thorough review, but determined that at this time, there is insufficient evidence to charge Mr Hammer with a crime."
She continued: "As prosecutors, we have an ethical responsibility to only charge cases that we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt. We know that it is hard for women to report sexual assault.
"Even when we cannot move forward with a prosecution, our victim service representatives will be available to those who seek our victim support services.
"Due to the complexity of the relationship and inability to prove a non-consensual, forcible sexual encounter we are unable to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt."
Hammer (left) shot to fame in 2010's The Social Network alongside Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake and Jesse Eisenberg
Following the announcement, Hammer wrote on Instagram: "I am very grateful to the District Attorney for conducting a thorough investigation and coming to the conclusion that I have stood by this entire time, that no crime was committed.
"I look forward to beginning what will be a long, difficult process of putting my life back together now that my name is cleared."
In the caption he added: "I would like to say a very special thank you to all of the people who have helped me get through this time. Onwards and upwards."
His accuser, who is known as Effie, told BBC News: "I am disappointed with the LA County District Attorney's decision not to prosecute Armie Hammer.
"I felt a duty to speak out and file a report. It has cost me a great deal to have spoken out
"Since I came forward, I have received death threats, rape threats, countless attacks, and atrocious, incessant harassment."
Following the initial allegation controversy, Hammer stepped down from his starring role opposite Jennifer Lopez in comedy film Shotgun Wedding, and was replaced by Josh Duhamel.
He was also replaced by Miles Teller in the TV series The Offer, a drama about the making of The Godfather.
Hammer married US TV personality Elizabeth Chambers in May 2010 and the pair share two children. The couple announced their divorce in 2020.
In September, a three-part Discovery+ series titled House Of Hammer, produced by the actor's aunt Casey Hammer, showed on-camera interviews with two of Hammer's alleged victims in which they detailed some of their alleged abuse. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65775249 |
Rishi Sunak prioritises illegal migration in European talks - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Rishi Sunak was in Moldova for a summit of 47 nations that was dominated by the war in Ukraine. | UK Politics | Rishi Sunak has said he made cooperation on combating illegal migration a priority at a meeting of European leaders in Moldova.
The prime minister said he was "putting tackling illegal migration top of the international agenda", and the UK was "taking the lead".
The main focus of the European Political Community (EPC) summit was the Ukraine war.
But Mr Sunak was keen to show progress on one of his five domestic promises.
Before he arrived for the talks at a castle near the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, he warned that Europe was "facing unprecedented threats at our border".
The UK is beginning talks with Moldova, which has a population of 2.6 million, on an agreement to return migrants who arrive in the UK illegally.
However, only three Moldovan nationals arrived in the UK on a small boat last year, according to Home Office statistics.
A similar deal struck with Georgia has now come into force.
Around 300 Georgians arrived in the UK on small boats in 2022, and 31 in the first three months of this year.
The EPC - championed by French President Emmanuel Macron - was formed in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year.
It includes 47 European nations - including European Union (EU) member states, the UK, Turkey, Norway and Balkans countries outside the EU.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was also at the summit, which was held less than 15 miles from his country's border.
President Zelenksy, who called for Nato to give a clear commitment that Ukraine could join the Western defensive alliance, had talks with Mr Sunak.
Speaking at the summit, the prime minister agreed that Ukraine's "rightful place" was in Nato, but gave no detail on a path to membership.
He said the UK was working with its allies to ensure Ukraine had the "combat air capability needed to repel ongoing Russian aggression".
The first EPC meeting, in Prague last October, was attended by then-prime minister Liz Truss. The UK is due to host a summit next year.
Tweeting from Moldova, Mr Sunak said: "We've already made migration agreements with Albania, France and the EU to stop the boats.
"This global issue requires collaboration and the UK is taking the lead."
The Times has reported that the UK is keen to increase cooperation with Turkey and Bulgaria as part of efforts to tackle small boats crossing the English Channel.
Earlier, Mr Sunak said: "Europe is facing unprecedented threats at our borders. From Putin's utter contempt of other countries' sovereignty to the rise in organised immigration crime across our continent.
"In every meeting, every summit, every international gathering like this, the security of our borders must be top of the agenda.
"The UK will be at the heart of this international effort to stop the boats and defend our national security."
Moldova, which is wedged between the EU and Ukraine, is a former Soviet state, and while its government looks West, pro-Russian separatists control its Transnistria region.
It has accepted thousands of Ukrainian refugees, and the EPC has promised it more support.
In March, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly announced £10m funding for Moldova's energy sector, as well as economic and governance reforms.
Mr Macron has said the new club of nations offers "a platform for political coordination" for countries inside and outside the EU.
But the EPC has no institutions or dedicated staff. That has provoked questions about how any decisions would be implemented. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65775399 |
Phillip Schofield admits lying about relationship with younger ITV employee - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The 61-year-old is leaving ITV with immediate effect as he apologises for misleading employers, his family and the public. | Entertainment & Arts | Phillip Schofield left his role on This Morning last week following reports of a rift with Holly Willoughby
Phillip Schofield has quit ITV after admitting he had an affair with a younger male ITV employee and lied to cover it up.
The ex-This Morning host said the relationship with his junior colleague was "unwise but not illegal".
In a statement to the Daily Mail, Schofield said he "met the man when he was a teenager and was asked to help him to get into television".
He apologised for lying to colleagues, employers, the media and public.
An ITV spokesperson said they were "deeply disappointed by the admissions of deceit" made by Schofield and confirmed it had cut all ties with the host.
It means the 61-year-old will no longer present the British Soap Awards next month.
He will also not front a new prime-time series which ITV had said last week they were developing with him.
Schofield left his role at This Morning last week after reports of a rift with co-star Holly Willoughby.
He said his departure from the show was unrelated to the affair with the colleague, who the BBC is not naming.
The TV presenter was still married to his wife Stephanie Lowe at the time of the relationship. They separated in 2020, after Schofield came out as gay.
Schofield said he was "so, very, very sorry" for being unfaithful to his wife, and for lying to his colleagues, agents, employers, friends, the media and the public.
Schofield said he was "so, very, very sorry" for being unfaithful to his wife Stephanie Lowe (pictured in 2017)
The TV host said he would reflect on his "very bad judgement in both participating in the relationship and then lying about it".
An ITV spokesperson said: "The relationships we have with those we work with are based on trust.
"Phillip made assurances to us which he now acknowledges were untrue and we feel badly let down."
His announcement follows significant online speculation over several months about Schofield's personal relationships.
Talent agency YMU has also cut ties with Schofield following his announcement about the affair.
In a statement to the BBC, the TV presenter said: "It is with the most profound regret that after 35 years of being faultlessly managed by YMU I have agreed to step down from their representation with immediate effect."
Some former ITV daytime figures, including Eamonn Holmes and Dan Wootton, have suggested the network has questions to answer about how much managers knew about the relationship and what action they took.
"I am making this statement via the Daily Mail to whom I have already apologised personally for misleading, through my lawyer who I also misled, about a story which they wanted to write about me a few days ago.
"The first thing I want to say is: I am deeply sorry for having lied to them, and to many others about a relationship that I had with someone working on This Morning. I did have a consensual on-off relationship with a younger male colleague at This Morning.
"Contrary to speculation, whilst I met the man when he was a teenager and was asked to help him to get into television, it was only after he started to work on the show that it became more than just a friendship. That relationship was unwise, but not illegal. It is now over.
"When I chose to come out I did so entirely for my own wellbeing. Nobody 'forced' me out. Neither I nor anyone else, to my knowledge, has ever issued an injunction, super or otherwise, about my relationship with this colleague, he was never moved on or sacked by or because of me.
"In an effort to protect my ex-colleague I haven't been truthful about the relationship. But my recent, unrelated, departure from This Morning fuelled speculation and raised questions which have been impacting him, so for his sake it is important for me to be honest now.
"I am painfully conscious that I have lied to my employers at ITV, to my colleagues and friends, to my agents, to the media and therefore the public and most importantly of all to my family. I am so very, very sorry, as I am for having been unfaithful to my wife.
"I have therefore decided to step down from the British Soap Awards, my last public commitment, and am resigning from ITV with immediate effect expressing my immense gratitude to them for all the amazing opportunities that they have given me.
"I will reflect on my very bad judgement in both participating in the relationship and then lying about it.
"To protect his privacy, I am not naming this individual and my deepest wish is that both he and his family can now move on with their lives free from further intrusion, and that this statement will enable them to do so.
"I ask the media now to respect their privacy. They have done nothing wrong, and I ask that their privacy should be respected."
Schofield's final appearance on This Morning was on Thursday 18 May. He announced his departure from the ITV daytime show that weekend.
Cover presenters Alison Hammond and Dermot O'Leary paid tribute to Schofield at the start of Monday's programme.
Schofield had presented This Morning show since 2002, with Willoughby joining him as a co-presenter in 2009.
Willoughby is currently on holiday but set to return to the show on Monday 5 June.
Earlier this year, his brother Timothy Schofield was jailed for 12 years after being found guilty of sexually abusing a boy.
Schofield and Willoughby presented ITV's This Morning and Dancing on Ice together before his departure | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65729361 |
Elon Musk: Twitter boss reclaims title of world's richest person - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Shares in Musk's electric car company Tesla have almost doubled since the start of the year. | Business | Elon Musk has reclaimed his title as the world's richest person, knocking the boss of luxury goods giant LVMH, Bernard Arnault, off the top spot.
His net worth has soared by $55.3bn (£44.44bn) since January to $192bn, after a rise in the value of his electric car company Tesla.
Mr Arnault's fortune has fallen by $24.5bn to $187bn, per Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.
He is followed by Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates in third and fourth positions.
Mr Arnault, 74, had overtaken Mr Musk, 51, on the the rich list in December when shares in LVMH jumped as demand for luxury goods rebounded.
At the same, shares in Tesla - the company from which Mr Musk derives most of his wealth - fell sharply amid concerns that his takeover of the social media platform Twitter was affecting his leadership.
However, Tesla shares have bounced back by almost 92% since the start of this year as investor nerves have eased and Mr Musk has announced his replacement as Twitter chief executive.
His visit to China this week to discuss Tesla has also sparked excitement, while the car firm is benefiting from the rise in interest in artificial intelligence.
By contrast, LVMH - which owns brands including Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior - has gone into reverse.
After hitting a record high in April, its shares have fallen sharply and are down 16% since the start of the year.
Mr Arnault, who co-founded the luxury goods giant in 1987, owns a majority stake in the business, which is Europe's most valuable firm.
In January, the Frenchman appointed his daughter Delphine Arnault, 47, as head of his fashion house Dior as part of a shake-up at LVMH.
All five of Mr Arnault's children hold management positions at brands in the group.
According to Bloomberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the world's third richest person with a fortune of $146bn. Mr Gates, who co-founded Microsoft, is worth $126bn. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65781534 |
Ben Roberts-Smith: Top Australian soldier loses war crimes defamation case - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Ben Roberts-Smith had sued newspapers over allegations he killed unarmed prisoners in Afghanistan. | Australia | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ben Roberts-Smith: Why Australian soldier's case loss raises next question... in 83 seconds
Australia's most-decorated living soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has lost a historic defamation case against three newspapers that accused him of war crimes in Afghanistan.
The outlets were sued over articles alleging he killed unarmed prisoners.
The civil trial was the first time a court has assessed accusations of war crimes by Australian forces.
A judge said four of the six murder allegations - all denied by the soldier - were substantially true.
Justice Anthony Besanko found the newspaper had not proven two other murder allegations; nor reports Mr Roberts-Smith had assaulted a woman with whom he was having an affair; nor a threat against a junior colleague.
But additional allegations that he had unlawfully assaulted captives and bullied peers were found to be true.
Mr Roberts-Smith, who left the defence force in 2013, has not been charged over any of the claims in a criminal court, where there is a higher burden of proof. The 44-year-old was not present for Thursday's judgement.
After the decision, a Taliban spokesman said the case was proof of "uncountable crimes" by foreign forces in Afghanistan, but added he did not trust any court globally to follow them up.
Australian troops were deployed to Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021. Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles declined to comment on the case, saying it was a civil matter.
Mr Roberts-Smith is Australia's most famous living war veteran and served with the country's elite Special Air Service Regiment (SAS).
He received the country's highest military award - the Victoria Cross - in 2011 for having single-handedly overpowered Taliban machine-gunners who had been attacking his platoon.
But his public image was shattered in 2018 when The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times started publishing articles about his misconduct between 2009 and 2012.
The soldier argued five of the killings reported by the newspapers had occurred legally during combat, and the sixth did not happen at all.
His defamation case - dubbed by some "the trial of the century" - lasted 110 days and was rumoured to have cost up to A$25m ($16.3m, £13.2m).
More than 40 witnesses - including Afghan villagers, a government minister and a string of current and former SAS soldiers - gave extraordinary evidence about every facet of Mr Roberts-Smith's life.
But the case also exposed some of the secretive inner workings of Australia's elite special forces.
The trial heard from soldiers who said potential misconduct was rarely reported due to a "code of silence" within the regiment, and others defended their actions as necessary.
Many giving evidence were there unwillingly, having been subpoenaed, and three refused to speak about some allegations fearing self-incrimination.
Much of the evidence against Mr Roberts-Smith relied on eyewitness accounts and recollections of discussions among soldiers. Justice Besanko had to weigh the reliability of witnesses against each other, with the media outlets contending theirs had no reason to lie.
Speaking outside the Federal Court in Sydney, the news outlets called the judgement a "vindication" for their reporting.
"It's a day of justice for the brave men of the SAS who stood up and told the truth about who Ben Roberts-Smith is: a war criminal, a bully and a liar," said investigative reporter Nick McKenzie, who wrote the stories alongside Chris Masters and David Wroe.
"[And] today is a day of some small justice for the Afghan victims of Ben Roberts-Smith."
Journalist Nick McKenzie says their reporting had relied on the "moral courage" of other SAS soldiers
The Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organisation also praised the role of investigative journalism in "uncovering the truth and raising public awareness" about what had taken place in the country.
Media magnate Kerry Stokes - who employs Mr Roberts-Smith at rival outlet Seven West Media - said the judgement did "not accord with the man I know".
"I know this will be particularly hard for Ben, who has always maintained his innocence," said Mr Stokes, who loaned the soldier money to fund his legal case. Mr Roberts-Smith had offered to hand in his Victoria Cross as collateral, local media reported.
The case comes three years after a landmark report found credible evidence that Australian forces had unlawfully killed 39 civilians and prisoners in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2013.
Accusations of war crimes have also been levelled at soldiers from the UK and US in recent years.
Local media say dozens of Australian soldiers are being investigated for their roles in alleged war crimes. But so far charges have only been laid against one, Oliver Schulz.
War historian Peter Stanley told the BBC ahead of the judgement that Mr Roberts-Smith's case was "a litmus test" for allegations of Australian wrongdoing in Afghanistan.
"The Ben Roberts-Smith episode is just a precursor to the major series of war crimes investigations, allegations, prosecutions, and possibly convictions that we'll see over the next few years." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-65773942 |
Health alert system aims to cut heatwave deaths - BBC News | 2023-06-01T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The aim is to protect the most vulnerable as high temperatures become more common due to climate change. | Health | A fire destroys houses in a village in east London in July 2022, at the height of the summer heatwave
A new alert system will warn the public when high temperatures could damage their health this summer in England.
Run by the UK Health Security Agency and the Met Office, it is aimed at reducing illness and deaths among the most vulnerable.
Climate change is likely to make heatwaves more frequent.
UK temperatures rose above 40C for the first time last summer, the country's fourth warmest, with Coningsby, Lincs, reaching a record 40.3C on 19 July.
Last year was the UK's warmest - and this century has had 15 of the top 20, with all of the hottest 10 in the past two decades.
The Heat Health Alert system will operate year-round, but the core alerting season will run from 1 June to 30 September. The system will offer regional information and advice to the public and send guidance direct to NHS England, the government and healthcare professionals.
Individuals can sign up to receive alerts directly here, and people can specify which region they would like to receive alerts for.
There will be four alert colours, with green indicating no risk to health:
Dr Agostinho Sousa, head of extreme events and health protection at the UK Health Security Agency, said the alert system would play "a vital role".
"Last year saw record high temperatures across England and evidence shows that heatwaves are likely to occur more often, be more intense and last longer in the years and decades ahead," he said.
"It is important we are able to quantify the likely impacts of these heatwaves before they arrive to prevent illness and reduce the number of deaths."
Will Lang, from the Met Office, said the effects of human-induced climate change were already being felt on UK summers "with an increase in the frequency, duration, and intensity of extreme heat events over recent decades".
The health alerts would help save lives, protect property and the economy "as we all work to tackle adverse weather and climate change", he said. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-65769165 |
French Open 2023 results: Iga Swiatek beats Karolina Muchova for Paris title - BBC Sport | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | null | Poland's Iga Swiatek maintains her recent grip on the French Open by beating Karolina Muchova to win her third Roland Garros title in four years. | null | Last updated on .From the section Tennis
Coverage: Live text and radio commentaries of selected matches across BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra, the BBC Sport website and app
Iga Swiatek maintained her recent grip on the French Open by fighting past Karolina Muchova to win her third Roland Garros title in four years.
The top seed was the heavy favourite to beat 43rd-ranked Muchova, but had to dig deep to win 6-2 5-7 6-4.
Czech player Muchova, 26, broke for 4-3 in the decider, but Poland's Swiatek, 22, finished strongly to triumph.
Swiatek, who has now won four Grand Slams, is the first woman to defend the title since Justine Henin in 2007.
"It wasn't an easy match. It was a pretty intense last few weeks," said world number one Swiatek, who dropped the lid off the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen seconds after collecting the trophy.
"I am just really happy. I never really focus on the records. I just do my best every day."
Muchova - told to quit last year by doctors because of injuries - showed remarkable resolve to fight back from a set and 3-0 down, not only making a contest of what had been a one-sided match but moving to within two service holds of a first major title.
However, after immediately being unable to back up the break as Swiatek levelled for 4-4, Muchova ended up losing in one of the cruellest possible ways by producing a double fault on her opponent's first match point.
Swiatek instantly dropped her racquet and dropped to her haunches, bursting into tears on the court before hugging Muchova when she came around the net.
As Swiatek ran up to the stands to celebrate with her team - like she did after winning 12 months ago - Muchova sat in her chair contemplating what might have been.
Muchova received a rapturous standing ovation when she went to collect her runners-up prize, which led to her being overcome with emotion.
"It was so close yet so far. That's what happens when you play one of the best in Iga," she said.
Swiatek, who has won a seventh title in 16 clay-court tournaments, had not dropped a set at Roland Garros this year - nor in any of her three previous major finals - until Muchova took the match into a decider.
She looked uncharacteristically flustered as Muchova threatened an upset, only to regain her composure when it mattered.
When former world number one Ashleigh Barty announced her surprise retirement in March 2022, it opened up the top of the women's game and left a void, with nobody entirely sure who would fill it.
Enter Swiatek. Having already won the French Open as a virtually unknown teenager in 2020, she clearly had the potential to take over from Barty but perhaps not the confidence.
However, that all changed in a stunning clay-court season last year which formed the bulk of a 37-match winning streak and led to the Pole becoming the dominant force in the women's game.
This year, she has come under pressure from Belarus' Aryna Sabalenka and Kazakstan's Elena Rybakina - as the trio formed a new 'big three' - leading to doubts over whether Swiatek could dominate Roland Garros again in the same manner.
A thigh injury in the build-up at Rome also led to further questions, but Swiatek quickly dispelled any notion she was no longer the favourite by storming through the draw on the Paris clay.
Rybakina's withdrawal early in the tournament through illness ended the prospect of her facing Swiatek in the last four, while Muchova's shock semi-final win over Sabalenka ensured a final few people had predicted.
Instead Swiatek faced the clever Czech, who reached the 2021 Australian Open semi-finals before an array of physical problems derailed her career.
Swiatek started sharply by winning 12 of the first 15 points in the match, holding serve in a 10-minute game to lead 4-1 and facing no more problems as she broke again to clinch the opening set.
An identical start to the second set - Swiatek again breaking on the way to a 3-0 lead - left those watching wondering if Muchova was also going to be heavily beaten like the Pole's previous final opponents Sofia Kenin and Coco Gauff were.
But this time Muchova recovered to turn the match into a compelling contest.
Suddenly Swiatek had problems to solve and, with thoughts of a straightforward victory long gone, became animated as she tried to figure out what was going wrong.
The fact she did was another sure sign of her quality. Regaining her composure, which in turn increased the pressure on Muchova, enabled Swiatek to join Monica Seles and Naomi Osaka as the only women to win their first four major finals in the Open era.
"I think Swiatek will win double-digit Slams. Will she get to what Serena Williams achieved [23]? I don't think so but this is what the women's game needs," said former British number one Greg Rusedski, who was analysing the final for BBC Radio 5 Live.
"There's so many great players around her. She is a dominant force but they are all getting better. They are forced to because of how good Swiatek is."
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Ukraine counter-offensive actions have begun, Zelensky says - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Ukraine's president refused to say which stage the counter-offensive against Russian forces was in. | Europe | Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky appears to have confirmed that his country's long-awaited counter-offensive against Russia has started.
"Counter-offensive and defensive actions are taking place," he said.
But he added that he would not talk in detail about which stage or state the counter-offensive was in.
The comments come after an escalation of fighting in the south and east of Ukraine and speculation about progress of the widely anticipated push.
Ukrainian troops are reported to have advanced in the east near Bakhmut and in the south near Zaporizhzhia, and have carried out long-range strikes on Russian targets.
But assessing the reality on the front lines is difficult, with the two warring sides presenting contrasting narratives: Ukraine claiming progress and Russia that it is fighting off attacks.
Meanwhile in Russia's Kaluga region - which borders the southern districts around Moscow - governor Vladislav Shapsha said on Telegram that a drone crashed near the village of Strelkovk early on Sunday. The BBC has not independently verified the report.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a video interview published Friday that Ukrainian forces had certainly begun their offensive but that attempted advances had failed with heavy casualties.
Speaking in Kyiv on Saturday after talks with Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, Mr Zelensky described the Russian leader's words as "interesting".
Shrugging his shoulders, raising his eyebrows and pretending not to know who Mr Putin was, Mr Zelensky said it was important that Russia felt "they do not have long left".
He also said that Ukraine's military commanders were in a positive mood, adding: "Tell that to Putin."
Mr Trudeau announced 500 million Canadian dollars (£297m) in new military aid for Ukraine during the unannounced visit.
A joint statement issued after the talks said Canada supports Ukraine becoming a Nato member "as soon as conditions allow for it", adding that the issue would be discussed at the Nato Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, in July.
Meanwhile, fighting has escalated in recent days in the key southern Zaporizhzhia region, Russian officials say. Ukrainian forces are thought to be trying to push south to split Russian forces in two, breaking through the occupied territory which connects Russia to Crimea.
Ukraine's hope of advances in the region could be hindered by huge flooding in the south of the country after the Nova Khakovka dam was destroyed last week.
The flooding has covered around 230 square miles (596 sq km) either side of the Dnipro River.
In his nightly address on Saturday, Mr Zelensky said 3,000 people have been evacuated from the flooded Kherson and Mykolaiv regions.
And Kherson's regional head Oleksandr Prokudin said water levels had dropped by 27cm, but more than 30 settlements on the right bank of the river - which is Ukrainian-held territory - were still flooded and almost 4,000 residential buildings remained underwater.
Nato and Ukraine's military have accused Russia of blowing up the dam, while Russia has blamed Ukraine.
However, it seems highly likely that Russian forces, which controlled the dam, decided to blow it up in order to make it more difficult for Ukrainian forces to cross the river as part of their ongoing counteroffensive, the BBC's Paul Adams says. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65866880 |
Colombia plane crash: Children reunited with family after 40 days in Amazon - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The children have begun playing again in hospital, officials say, as the eldest is praised for her care. | Latin America & Caribbean | The four children are at the central military hospital in the capital Bogota
Four children who survived weeks alone in Colombia's Amazon jungle have been reunited with relatives as they recover in hospital.
The siblings, aged 13, nine, five and one, are "very weak" but "happy to see their family", said their grandfather, Fidencio Valencia.
They are speaking a little and two of them have begun playing, officials say.
The four children were found on Friday after more than a month of searching by the military and local people.
They went missing after the plane they were in crashed on 1 May. Their mother and two pilots were killed in the crash.
Rescuers tracked them down after spotting signs in the jungle, including footprints and fruit that had been bitten into.
Two of the children, the one-year-old baby and five-year-old, spent their birthdays in the jungle, as the eldest Lesly, 13, guided them through the ordeal.
They survived by eating flour that they found in the plane's wreckage and then seeds, Mr Valencia said.
Colombia's Defence Minister Ivan Velasquez, who visited them in the hospital with President Gustavo Petro on Saturday, praised Lesly for taking care of her younger siblings.
"It is thanks to her, her value and her leadership, that the three others were able to survive, with her care, her knowledge of the jungle," Mr Velasquez said.
"In general the children, the boy and the girls are in an acceptable state, according to the medical reports they are out of danger."
Military doctor Carlos Rincon said they have "nutritional deficiencies" but had survived with only "some soft tissue injuries, bites, and skin lesions".
They are not yet able to eat, he said, adding: "We will begin the process of incorporating food when we complete the process of clinical examinations that will be done today. If things go well, we believe they will stay in the hospital for two to three weeks."
Astrid Caceres, the general director of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, said the children "don't talk as much as we would like them to" and need time to recover.
But she said two of the children had been playing.
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The children belong to the Huitoto indigenous group. General Pedro Sanchez, who led the search operation, credited Indigenous people who volunteered to help the rescue effort.
"We found the children: miracle, miracle, miracle!" he told reporters.
Some rescuers are continuing to search the jungle for a rescue dog, a Belgian Shepherd, that went missing during the hunt for the children.
The children's grandmother, Fatima Valencia, said after their rescue: "I am very grateful, and to mother earth as well, that they were set free."
She said the eldest of the four siblings was used to looking after the other three when their mother was at work, and that this helped them survive in the jungle.
"She gave them flour and cassava bread, any fruit in the bush, they know what they must consume," Ms Valencia said in footage obtained by EVN.
The Cessna 206 aircraft the children and their mother had been travelling on before the crash was flying from Araracuara, in Amazonas province, to San José del Guaviare, when it issued a mayday alert due to engine failure.
The bodies of the three adults were found at the crash site by the army, but it appeared that the children had escaped the wreckage and wandered into the rainforest to find help.
In May, rescuers recovered items left behind by the children, including a child's drinking bottle, a pair of scissors, a hair tie and a makeshift shelter.
Small footprints were also discovered, which led search teams to believe the children were still alive in the rainforest, which is home to jaguars, snakes and other predators.
Members of the children's community hoped that their knowledge of fruits and jungle survival skills would give them a better chance of remaining alive.
Indigenous people joined the search and helicopters broadcast a message from the children's grandmother, recorded in the Huitoto language, urging them to stop moving to make them easier to locate. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-65869284 |
France knife attack: 'Backpack hero' praised for facing attacker - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Catholic pilgrim Henri said he simply followed his instincts when confronting the Annecy attacker. | Europe | The man - known only as Henri - was saluted for his bravery by President Emmanuel Macron
French media have lauded a young "hero with a backpack" for his attempts to thwart a knife attack in Annecy which left four children seriously injured.
Henri, 24, was filmed chasing the suspect and swinging his bag at him.
The Catholic pilgrim - who has been touring France's cathedrals - said he had followed his instincts and did what he could to "protect the weak".
He was praised for his bravery by President Emmanuel Macron when the two met in the town on Friday afternoon.
Mr Macron told Henri that his actions were a "source of hope", but that the young man had "lived through... a trauma".
The French leader travelled to meet the victims of the stabbings and salute the work of first responders.
He said he had heard "positive" news about the condition of the four children wounded in the attack. Two adults were also hurt.
Footage of the incident itself and the immediate aftermath appeared to show Henri swinging one of his backpacks at the attacker, who tried to slash at him in return.
Another clip showed him chasing the knifeman across a grassy area.
As the phrase #MerciHenri started to trend online, Henri posted on Instagram to say: "Pray for the children, I am doing fine."
Henri received messages of thanks, not only for his actions but also his apparent modesty.
Interviewed the next morning by CNews, Henri said: "All I know is, I was not there by chance."
He explained that it was "unthinkable to do nothing... I followed my instincts and did what I could to protect the weak."
The management graduate, who has declined to provide his surname, later pointed out to BFMTV that that he was not the only civilian who put themselves in harm's way.
He had "acted like any French person would", he said. "Many other people intervened in whatever way they could. I saw a park employee try to hit the attacker with his big plastic spade."
Henri's father believes his son's actions prevented more people from getting wounded by the assailant.
Speaking to the Associated Press news agency, he said his son had "prevented carnage by scaring him off. Really very courageous".
Henri had been interviewed just days before the incident by the Dauphiné Libéré newspaper. He was quizzed on his nine-month tour of France's cathedrals, which he planned to complete by walking and hitchhiking.
He was quoted discussing his trick of knocking on random doors near cathedrals to try and find accommodation. "It forces you to open up to people," he explained.
Commenting on the suggestion that the suspect in Thursday's attacks also identifies as a Christian, Henri said it was "profoundly unchristian to attack the vulnerable".
Instead, Henri said, "something very bad inhabited him".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Youssouf, 78, says there was no reason for the attack | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65860077 |
Boris Johnson: Welsh Tory leader regrets former PM's departure - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies says he "regrets" that Boris Johnson has quit as an MP. | Wales | Boris Johnson claimed his "removal" was the "necessary first step" by some who oppose him, "to take revenge for Brexit and ultimately to reverse the 2016 referendum result"
Things have gone "tragically wrong" for Boris Johnson, according to the leader of the Welsh Conservatives.
But Andrew RT Davies said he did "regret that the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson has left the stage".
Mr Johnson stood down as an MP on Friday after receiving a report on whether he misled parliament over parties held at Downing Street during lockdown.
The former prime minister accused the inquiry of trying to "drive me out".
Labour MP for Gower, Tonia Antoniazzi, said she was "glad" Mr Johnson had stepped down and described him as a "waste of space".
She added: "It's been a long time coming. Let's move on and build a better politics."
But Welsh Secretary David TC Davies said he was "sorry" to see Mr Johnson go.
"As far as I'm concerned, Boris got it right on Ukraine, Boris got it right on the vaccine programme and Boris had it right on Brexit," the Conservative Monmouth MP said.
In evidence given to the Privileges Committee in March, Mr Johnson admitted misleading parliament, but denied doing it on purpose.
He said social distancing had not been "perfect" at the Downing Street gatherings.
But he said they were "essential" work events which he claimed were allowed.
In a statement following his resignation, Mr Johnson, who was prime minister between 2019 and 2022, said: "They have still not produced a shred of evidence that I knowingly or recklessly misled the Commons."
Describing the report, he said it was "riddled with inaccuracies and reeks of prejudice".
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Andrew RT Davies told Saturday's BBC Radio Wales Breakfast: "I do acknowledge that things went tragically wrong towards the end of his tenure as a prime minister.
"And, obviously, that had to be drawn to a close and events that have happened over the last couple of days have obviously taken many people by surprise."
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions programme, David TC Davies said: "I make no apologies for saying that I really like the guy and I'm sorry he's gone."
Other Welsh politicians shared their thoughts, including Leanne Wood, who was Plaid Cymru leader between 2012 and 2018.
Responding to the resignations of Mr Johnson and former culture secretary Nadine Dorries, she said: "Would love today's [Saturday's] resignations to kickstart a sea-change in the way in which society values integrity and accountability in the political world.
"It doesn't need to be this way. Always hopeful."
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Other politicians took to social media, including Labour MP for Ogmore, Chris Elmore, who said: "To the very last, he couldn't be honest. Forced out? More like found out."
Hywel Williams, Plaid Cymru MP for Arfon, said: "Dorries and Boris, a shameful and shameless double act leave the stage.
"Two pantomime villains who revelled in wreaking havoc during our darkest hours."
Cardiff Cental Labour MP Jo Stevens said Mr Johnson had "debased our country's reputation, our politics and our democracy. It's entirely his fault and no-one else's."
On Saturday, Selby & Ainsty MP Nigel Adams, a former Under-Secretary of State for Wales, became the third Conservative in Westminster to announce his resignation. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65862445 |
What's in the Trump indictment: US nuclear secrets and files kept in shower - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Donald Trump is accused of keeping classified documents in a ballroom and bathroom at his Florida home. | US & Canada | This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: 'Violations of those laws put our country at risk'
Former President Donald Trump has been charged with mishandling hundreds of classified documents, including about US nuclear secrets and military plans.
The 37-count indictment accuses him of keeping the files at his Florida estate, including in a ballroom and a shower, and lying to investigators.
It alleges he then tried to obstruct the investigation into the handling of the documents.
Mr Trump, who is running for president again in 2024, denies any wrongdoing.
But legal experts say that the criminal charges against Mr Trump could lead to substantial prison time if he is convicted.
Charges have also been filed against Walt Nauta, a personal aide to Mr Trump. The former White House military valet is accused of moving files to hide them from the FBI.
The 49-page indictment contains the first-ever federal charges against a former US president. It says the classified documents Mr Trump stored in his boxes contained information about:
Prosecutors say that when Mr Trump left office, he took about 300 classified files to Mar-a-Lago - his oceanfront home in Palm Beach, which is also an expansive private members' club.
The charge sheet notes that Mar-a-Lago hosted events for tens of thousands of members and guests, including in a ballroom where documents were found.
Prosecutors say Mr Trump tried to obstruct the FBI inquiry into the missing documents by suggesting that his lawyer "hide or destroy" them, or tell investigators he did not have them.
"Wouldn't it be better if we just told them we don't have anything here?" Mr Trump said to one of his attorneys, according to the indictment.
Mr Trump's first court appearance in the case will be in Miami, Florida, on Tuesday - the eve of his 77th birthday.
Files were allegedly stored in a ballroom at Donald Trump's Florida property, Mar-a-Lago
Mar-a-Lago "was not an authorised location" for classified documents to be kept or discussed, the indictment says.
Some files were allegedly stored on stage in the ballroom, where events and gatherings took place - and later in a bathroom and a shower, an office space, and in Mr Trump's bedroom.
On two occasions in 2021, the former president allegedly showed classified documents to people without security clearance, including a writer and two members of staff.
At his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, which was also an "unauthorised location", he is said to have displayed and described a "plan of attack" that he told others had been prepared for him by the Department of Defense.
"As president I could have declassified it. Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret," Mr Trump allegedly said, according to an audio recording.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: 'I did nothing wrong. We'll fight this out.'
Prosecutors say Mr Trump then showed off classified documents again in August or September 2021 at the Bedminster club.
The former US president allegedly "showed a representative of his political action committee who did not possess a security clearance a classified map".
This map "related to a military operation" and Mr Trump told the person "he should not be showing it" to them and they "should not get too close", the indictment says.
Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing the investigation, said on Friday that laws protecting national defence information were critical and must be enforced.
"We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone," he said in a brief statement in Washington.
The indictment included images of files allegedly stored in a shower
"He is a Trump hater - a deranged 'psycho' that shouldn't be involved in any case having to do with 'Justice,'" he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Mr Trump pointed out that classified files were also found in President Joe Biden's former office and Delaware home, including in his garage.
The White House has previously said it immediately co-operated with officials as soon as those files were discovered, contrasting with Mr Trump's alleged efforts to obstruct investigators.
A federal investigation into Mr Biden's handling of classified documents is being led by Special Counsel Robert Hur and is still under way.
Shortly before the Department of Justice made the criminal charges public, two of Mr Trump's lawyers suddenly quit the case without much explanation, saying this was a "logical moment" to resign.
This is the second criminal case for Mr Trump, who is due to go on trial in New York next year in a state case involving a hush-money payment to a porn star. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65852286 |
Unabomber Ted Kaczynski found dead in US prison cell - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Kaczynski evaded capture for 20 years after a mass US bombing campaign that killed three people. | US & Canada | Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, has been found dead in his prison cell, federal officials confirmed to the BBC.
Kaczynski, 81, killed three people and injured 23 more during a mass mail-bombing spree between 1978 and 1995. He later pleaded guilty to his crimes.
He was sentenced to life without parole in 1996 after evading capture for almost 20 years.
The Harvard-trained mathematician was eventually caught in a Montana cabin.
He was a man who fascinated America for decades, and he became the focus of numerous TV documentaries.
Kaczynski spent the past three decades held at prisons across the US - most recently at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina.
Prison guards at the facility discovered Kaczynski's body on Saturday morning at around 00:25 local time (04:25 GMT), a spokesperson for the US Bureau of Prisons told the BBC.
His cause of death was not immediately clear.
"Responding staff immediately initiated life-saving measures," the spokesperson said. Kaczynski was then "transported by EMS to a local hospital and subsequently pronounced deceased by hospital personnel".
Before suffering from declining health which prompted his transfer to the facility in December 2021, he had been held at the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, since May 1998.
Kaczynski's violent campaign - which shook the US - left a number of his victims permanently maimed and changed the way Americans posted letters.
His crimes were uncovered after he forced the Washington Post and the New York Times to publish his unhinged and angry manifesto, called Industrial Society and Its Future, in September 1995.
They agreed to print the manifesto on the recommendation of the FBI and the US attorney general after Kaczynski said he would end his campaign if a national paper published his treatise.
The 35,000-word anonymised document railed against modern life and claimed that technology was leading to Americans suffering from a sense of alienation and powerlessness.
But after reading the papers, Kaczynski's brother and sister-in-law recognised the tone and alerted the FBI, who had been searching for him for years in the nation's longest manhunt.
In April 1996 authorities finally caught up with him in a 10-by-14-foot (3-by-4-metre) plywood and tarpaper cabin outside Lincoln, Montana.
The hut was filled with journals, a coded diary, explosives and two completed bombs.
While Kaczynski's manifesto struck many as being overtly political in tone, he never sought to embody the revolutionary mantle some attributed to him.
In his own journals he wrote that he didn't claim to be "altruist or to be acting for the 'good' (whatever that is) of the human race", instead insisting that he acted "merely from a desire for revenge".
His crimes seemed to begin shortly after he was fired from the family business by his brother for posting abusive limericks to a female colleague who had dumped him after two dates.
From there he retreated to the Montana wildness and to the cabin he had built by hand, without heating, plumbing or electricity.
His first attacks targeted Northwestern University in Illinois. The two bombings occurred almost a year apart on 25 May 1978 and 9 May 1979, injuring two people.
Then, in November 1979, an altitude-triggered bomb he had mailed went off aboard an American Airlines flight. Twelve people suffered from smoke inhalation.
The early attacks earned him the moniker Unabomber from the FBI, as his targets seemed to be universities and airlines.
On 5 April 1996, FBI agents finally tracked Kaczynski to a remote cabin in Montana
Over the following years he attacked a further 13 times, killing three people - computer rental store owner Hugh Scrutton, advertising executive Thomas Mosser and timber industry lobbyist Gilbert Murray.
At Kaczynski's trial, Mr Mosser's wife said her husband had been killed on the day he was supposed to be picking up a Christmas tree with his family and recalled the moments after the attack.
"He was moaning very softly," she said of her husband. "The fingers on his right hand were dangling. I held his left hand. I told him help was coming. I told him I loved him."
Since his capture there has been endless speculation about Kaczynski's motivations.
A test as a boy revealed he possessed an IQ of 167, and he had skipped two grades to attend Harvard University aged just 16.
FBI agents described him as "a twisted genius who aspires to be the perfect, anonymous killer" and he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic by a psychiatrist who interviewed him in prison.
In a 47-page report Sally Johnson wrote that the "central themes" of his manifesto "involve his belief that he is being maligned and harassed by family members and modern society".
But Kaczynski himself always insisted that he knew exactly what he was doing, and he tried to take his own life in prison after his legal team attempted to introduce an insanity plea.
In an interview with Time magazine in 1999 he said he didn't suffer from "delusions and and so on and so forth".
"I'm confident that I'm sane, personally," he said.
• None The Unabomber and the Norwegian mass murderer | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65867291 |
Man City beat Inter Milan 1-0 in Champions League final to claim Treble - BBC Sport | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | null | Manchester City win their first Champions League title by beating Inter Milan in Istanbul to claim the Treble. | null | Last updated on .From the section European Football
Manchester City's long quest to win the Champions League finally ended in triumph against Inter Milan in Istanbul as Pep Guardiola's side completed the Treble.
After winning the Premier League and FA Cup, City emulated Manchester United's triple trophy haul in 1999 as they became only the second English club to achieve the feat after Rodri's crisp 68th-minute strike settled an attritional final.
Guardiola's all-conquering side were never at their best against a brilliantly organised Inter and had to cope with the loss of Kevin de Bruyne to injury in the first half.
But the massed ranks of City fans inside Ataturk Stadium did not care about that as they joyously celebrated the greatest night - and season - in the club's history.
And for Guardiola, it seals his status as one of the managerial greats as he added a third Champions League to the two he won at Barcelona, the last coming in 2011.
This was never the walkover many predicted and City had to survive a few scares when Federico Dimarco's header bounced off the bar and Ederson made a stunning late save to deny Romelu Lukaku but ultimately this was all about the victory.
Now Guardiola and his players can take their place in history.
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The Champions League has brought suffering to City and Guardiola - especially when they lost to Premier League rivals Chelsea in the 2021 final - but all the pain disappeared just before midnight on a sultry night in Istanbul.
City survived late anxiety, especially when Inter substitute Lukaku headed straight at Ederson with the goal at his mercy, but there was an explosion of joy on the pitch and in the stands at Ataturk Stadium as they finally secured the giant trophy that has remained so elusively beyond their grasp for so long.
Guardiola said, whether it was fair or not, that his time at Manchester City would be judged on whether he was able to bring the Champions League to the club. Now that judgement can be made.
The Catalan, who won the Champions League with Barcelona in 2009 and 2011, will now be an iconic figure at City as well as Barcelona.
• None 'Hysterical and hated at times' - but Guardiola is the greatest
It is a simple fact that many outside the Abu Dhabi-owned club will always view their triumph through the prism of the charges of 115 financial breaches brought against them by the Premier League, charges they fiercely deny.
For City's owners, with Sheikh Mansour attending only his second game since taking control in 2008, this was the night they have planned for and the one when they finally claimed that holy grail.
This was an evening when only the result mattered to City, not the manner in which their greatest victory was achieved.
This was not a win secured with the dazzling style and creation that is usually their hallmark. In fact for long periods it was a scrappy, sloppy performance in the face of a well-drilled Inter side who were right in this Champions League Final until the whistle went.
None of that will matter now. All that will be recalled forever about this game by City's fans was the moment when Rodri arrived on the end of build-up play from Manuel Akanji and Bernardo Silva to send that precise right-foot finish away from the reach of Inter's outstanding keeper Andre Onana.
And of course the triumphant Champions League trophy lift.
City lived dangerously in the closing minutes and, when it was all over, Guardiola, so agitated in his technical area, was relatively calm as he sought out opposite number Simone Inzaghi for consoling words.
John Stones was once again outstanding for City while keeper Ederson made key contributions when required.
The celebrations at the final whistle reflected a magnificent season as City finally got their hands on the Champions League trophy and prepared to parade it around the streets of Manchester along with the Premier League and FA Cup on Monday.
• None Attempt saved. Robin Gosens (Inter Milan) header from a difficult angle on the right is saved in the top left corner. Assisted by Federico Dimarco with a cross.
• None Attempt missed. Nicolò Barella (Inter Milan) right footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses the top right corner following a set piece situation.
• None Marcelo Brozovic (Inter Milan) wins a free kick on the right wing.
• None Erling Haaland (Manchester City) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
• None Attempt missed. Romelu Lukaku (Inter Milan) left footed shot from the left side of the box misses to the right. Assisted by Lautaro Martínez with a headed pass.
• None Attempt saved. Romelu Lukaku (Inter Milan) header from very close range is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Robin Gosens with a headed pass. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page
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Leeds United: Chairman Andrea Radrizzani agrees £170m deal to sell club to 49ers - BBC Sport | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | null | Leeds chairman Andrea Radrizzani agrees a deal to sell his stake in the club to co-owners 49ers Enterprises. | null | Last updated on .From the section Leeds United
Leeds United chairman Andrea Radrizzani has agreed a £170m deal to sell his stake in the relegated club to co-owners 49ers Enterprises.
The investment arm of the San Francisco 49ers purchased a 15% stake in Leeds in 2018 and increased that to 44% in 2021.
Italian Radrizzani bought Leeds outright for £45m in 2017, but his stake has dropped to 56% since then.
Managerless Leeds were relegated from the Premier League on the final day and are preparing for the Championship.
The previous agreement, which depended on their top-flight survival, was worth about £400m - but negotiations restarted following their drop to the second tier.
A club statement read: "Leeds United can confirm an agreement has been reached between Aser Ventures and 49ers Enterprises for the purchase of the club.
"Both parties continue to work through the details, and further updates will be provided soon. All of our focus remains on a quick return to the Premier League."
After relegation was confirmed, the Leeds United Supporters Club released a statement saying Radrizzani was "no longer an appropriate person to own Leeds United".
"His behaviour is appalling and he risks never being welcome at our club again," it added."The sooner he goes the better and we look forward to the 49ers Enterprises offer being accepted. The only way he can begin to salvage his reputation is through an immediate sale of the club and the stadium."
Radrizzani was popular with Leeds fans initially, with manager Marcelo Bielsa taking them back into the Premier League. But the relationship soured after he sacked the Argentine, and he did not attend their final game, a defeat by Tottenham which sealed their relegation while fans chanted for him to leave.
This deal has to be good for the club - analysis
This news has been expected since Sampdoria confirmed Radrizzani had taken a stake in the club, which had just been relegated to Serie B.
The brutal truth is that Radrizzani, charismatic as he is, lacks the funds to really shove Leeds up the Premier League in the way the 49ers have.
It was hoped they could escape again this term but, ultimately, they just were not good enough and not even interim boss Sam Allardyce could save them.
However, while no-one would choose to get relegated because of the uncertainty it brings, under the circumstances it does not need to be a disaster.
Allardyce has gone, just as director of football Victor Orta went before him. Recruitment-wise, Leeds are starting with a clean slate.
What they are not starting with in the Championship is a level playing field. Given the parachute payments and their enormous fan base, quite frankly, it would reflect very badly if Leeds did not go straight back up.
The same could be said about Leicester and Southampton, putting the real pressure on the two clubs who went down in 2021-22 and did not come straight back - Norwich and Watford.
There are structural issues to address around Elland Road, which will be expensive to modernise but badly needs it. However, on the pitch, this deal has to be good for the club.
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Ukraine's counter-offensive against Russia under way - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | It's been talked of for months, now it looks like Ukraine is finally launching its plan to recapture land. | Europe | Ukraine has been planning its counter-offensive for months - and it now may finally be under way
Was this the week that Ukraine's long-anticipated counter-offensive finally got under way?
Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to think so. "We can definitely state that this Ukrainian offensive has begun," he said in a video interview published on Telegram on Friday.
In some ways, it's already been under way for weeks, with Ukraine conducting what's known in military jargon as "shaping operations": long range artillery and missile attacks on key Russian logistical targets far behind the front lines.
Monday seemed to herald a change, with small detachments of lightly armoured Ukrainian units moving forward across the open fields towards Russian fortifications in southern Ukraine, south-east of Zaporizhzhia.
"Now the so-called 'fighting reconnaissance stage' is taking place along the entire length of the front," Serhii Kuzan, co-founder and chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Centre, told the BBC.
"That means there's a probing of Russian defences."
Some videos and accounts suggested that they quickly ran into trouble.
"Somewhere this happens more successfully with small losses," Mr Kuzan said. "And somewhere less successfully, where the Russians fight back."
Mr Kuzan declined to name specific towns, saying only that they were all in the area south of Zaporizhzhia.
By Tuesday, the world's attention was captured by the destruction of the dam at Nova Kakhovka and the subsequent flooding that soon covered around 230 square miles (596 sq km) either side of the Dnipro River.
For all the Kremlin's denials, it didn't look like a coincidence. The dam, and the road across it, offered a possible line of attack for Ukrainian forces looking for ways to keep Russian forces off-balance.
It seems highly likely that Russian forces, which controlled the dam, decided to blow it up, taking one of Kyiv's military operations off the table.
Kyiv had already signalled its interest in this stretch of the front line more than once.
In late April, Ukrainian soldiers crossed the river and briefly established a bridgehead at Oleshky. Ukraine also took control of several small islands in the Dnipro delta, close to Kherson.
The extent of Kyiv's military plans for this area is not known, and is now academic. The catastrophic flooding will have made river crossings impossible for the time being.
"But the fact that such a direction was an option was seen by the Russians," Mr Kuzan said.
The burst dam has caused catastrophic flooding across southern Ukraine
While the authorities in Kyiv suddenly grappled with the flooding, the fighting continued - and seemed to escalate - further east.
By early Thursday morning, the UK's Ministry of Defence tweeted that "heavy fighting continues along multiple sectors of the front," adding that in most areas "Ukraine holds the initiative."
In a video the same day, Russia's defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said that Russian forces had repelled an overnight Ukrainian attack in the area south of Zaporizhzhia, involving 150 armoured vehicles and 1,500 troops.
According to the Russian Defence Ministry, Ukraine's 47th Mechanised Brigade "made an attempt to break through Russian lines."
A video circulated on the internet, purporting to show something new: a western-supplied Leopard tank being destroyed. The BBC has not yet verified the video.
Ukrainian officials, characteristically tight lipped about current operations, offered tantalising glimpses into what was going on.
Hanna Malyar, the Deputy Defence Minister, coyly said that Russian troops were "actively on the defensive" in the area around the town of Orikhiv, around 65km south-east of Zaporizhzhia.
In a statement on Telegram, she also confirmed that battles were continuing around Velyka Novosilka, further east.
The two towns likely form the western and eastern edges of a heavily fortified stretch of the front line where many analysts believe Ukraine will eventually try and punch through Russian lines.
"It's not a secret that one of our main goals is to cut the land corridor that feeds the whole southern grouping of enemy forces," Mr Kuzan said.
Ukrainian forces want to cut the Russian-held land corridor to Crimea
Pro-Russian Telegram channels in the Donbas were full of excited chatter about Ukraine's latest moves, much of it laced with scorn.
"They are going where the Russians are waiting for them," one member posted in the I Love Kramatorsk group. "What stupidity!"
Others acknowledged that Ukrainian forces had moved forward, but questioned the price in lost men and armour.
"I really question the price of this success," another member of the same group commented.
"Do they have enough forces to reach Tokmak [44km south of Orikhiv], let alone Berdyansk and Melitopol?"
But it's not the only area where fighting is raging.
Footage from north and south of the city of Bakhmut, scene of one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the war, appeared to show Ukrainian forces moving forward.
Ms Malyar said they had advanced "from 200 to 1,100 metres in various sections," in what may eventually be an effort to encircle the city and trap its Russian occupiers.
It is, as the UK's Ministry of Defence noted, "a highly complex operational picture".
But does it mean that Ukraine's counter-offensive is already entering a dramatic new phase?
On Wednesday, Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, scoffed at the idea.
"All of this is not true," he told Reuters.
"When we start the counter-offensive, everyone will know about it. They will see it."
The air war - including the use of drones - will be vital for Ukraine's counteroffensive
But something has definitely changed.
"The point is that the front is finally moving," Serhii Kuzan said, adding that several options were still open to Ukrainian commanders.
But Ukraine is also operating under a number of significant restraints, the main one being the lack of fighter jets capable of providing support from the air.
"That's why we move slowly," Mr Kuzan said, "and then move air defence [systems] closer."
Another factor is time. This offensive will probably last no more than five months, after which autumn rain will once again render open ground impassable for heavy armoured vehicles.
What will success look like?
If Ukrainian forces can punch through Russian lines, all the way to the Sea of Azov, then any Russian troops west of that breach will suddenly be much more vulnerable, dependent entirely on supply lines through the Crimean Peninsula.
All that would then remain, Mr Kuzan says, would be to destroy the Kerch Bridge linking Russia with Crimea (briefly disabled by a huge truck bomb last October) and attack ships and planes being used to ferry supplies to the peninsula.
"That would be the end," he says. "But don't expect this to happen soon. It'll take months." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65860294 |
Third by-election for Tories as Boris Johnson ally quits - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Boris Johnson quit as an MP, saying he was the victim of a "witch hunt" over Partygate report. | UK Politics | An ally of Boris Johnson has resigned, triggering a third by-election for the Tories and creating deepening political problems for Rishi Sunak.
Nigel Adams did not say why he was leaving immediately but his decision follows that of Boris Johnson and, earlier on Friday, Nadine Dorries.
In a statement Mr Johnson lashed out at a Partygate report into whether he deliberately lied to Parliament, describing it as a "witch hunt".
Mr Adams, a Cabinet Office minister without portfolio under Mr Johnson's government, had previously announced he would not be standing at the next general election - but has now brought that decision forward.
In a tweet announcing he was going immediately, the MP for Selby and Ainsty said his local Conservative Association had selected a new parliamentary candidate on Friday.
By-elections sap energy, money and attention that the party would rather use to focus on governing and the general election.
The BBC has made dozens and dozens of phone calls and exchanged hundreds of WhatsApp messages since Boris Johnson made his shock resignation announcement on Friday evening.
It is clear there is deep - and wide - anger, if not surprise, at the way Mr Johnson and his allies have criticised the Commons Privileges Committee and the integrity of its members, who are duty bound to put party affiliation to one side, and not speak publicly about their report until it is published.
Announcing his resignation as MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip late on Friday evening, Mr Johnson issued an eviscerating 1,000-word statement.
The committee was preparing to recommend a 10-day suspension for Mr Johnson from the Commons, the BBC has been told, which would have resulted in a recall petition among his constituents and a potential by-election.
Mr Johnson said the draft report he had seen was "riddled with inaccuracies and reeks of prejudice".
He described the committee as a "kangaroo court" whose purpose "has been to find me guilty, regardless of the facts".
The committee is due to meet on Monday to finalise its conclusions and is expected to publish its findings shortly after - likely to be on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Angela Rayner, Labour's deputy leader, said the former prime minister had "jumped" and told BBC Radio 5 Live "to me, he is a coward".
Sir Chris Bryant, the Labour chairman of the Privileges Committee, said it was possible that Mr Johnson's statement could lead to further contempt of Parliament charges as the conclusion of the report is not supposed to be revealed before its publication and Mr Johnson had "effectively leaked" it.
Sir Chris, who had recused himself from the investigation into Mr Johnson told Radio 4's Today programme, the "attacks on the committee are in effect an attack on the whole House".
Boris Johnson was fined for attending a birthday gathering in the Cabinet Room in 2020
However, former home secretary Priti Patel, who was made a Dame in Mr Johnson's resignation honours list, also announced on Friday, praised the former prime minister, describing him as a "political titan".
Sir Michael Fabricant - another sitting MP announced in the resignation honours list - criticised the Privileges Committee for what he described as its "disgraceful treatment" of the former prime minister.
There has been no statement as yet from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak or any members of the Privileges Committee.
The BBC has tried to speak to all of those involved, but none would speak on the record.
But privately, Conservatives are all talking about it, trying to work out what might happen next.
Loads have told the BBC they are just totally fed up with the pantomime.
There is deep frustration there will now be three by-elections that the party could really do without.
The surprise exit of Boris Johnson followed that of Nadine Dorries, who announced she was standing down as MP of Mid Bedfordshire shortly before.
The Conservatives have a current working majority of 64 (before the resignations of Mr Johnson and Ms Dorries).
This is less than the 80-seat majority held by the Conservatives when Mr Johnson led the Tories to a landslide general election in 2019.
Meanwhile, Bill Cash, Conservative MP for Stone in Staffordshire, announced on Saturday evening that he would not be standing at the next general election. He was first elected in 1984.
Conservative backbencher Sir John Redwood said Rishi Sunak must make a statement "urgently reassuring those who were very strong Boris fans and strong Liz [Truss] fans that his party is for all Conservatives."
He told the BBC News channel the party will need "a bit of Boris magic" in their offer to voters.
But Tory grandee Chris Patten said he hoped Mr Johnson's resignation "is the end of a rather miserable period in British politics and a miserable period for the Conservative Party."
Lord Patten, who was party chairman under John Major, rejected claims the Privileges Committee's report was "anti-democratic".
"Of course it's not," he told the BBC. "What he means is it's criticised him... he should stop whining about it and get on with what he's plainly going to do best, which is going around making dishevelled speeches and making lots of money from them."
A former adviser to Mr Johnson said his decision to quit as an MP ahead of publication of the Partygate report did not mean it was the end of his political career.
Will Walden, who was chief media adviser to the former prime minister when he was foreign secretary, said Mr Johnson "had seen the writing on the wall".
Speaking to Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Walden said he would not have wanted to fight a by-election he was almost certain to lose.
"There is only one thing driving Boris and that is that he likes to win, or at least not to lose".
He added: "So, by going as he has, all guns blazing, he is able to avoid defeat, he is able to blame pretty much everyone else including it seems anyone that voted Remain in 2016."
Asked whether this was the end for Mr Johnson, he said: "I don't think it's the end. I don't know where we are on the panoply of beginning, middle and end, but this is typical Boris."
It is worth reflecting on what people mean by "the end".
It may well be the end of the road for him in Parliament - although that is not for certain - but it is certainly not the end of the road for him in terms of his influence. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/65866187 |
Boris Johnson: Tories to face third by-election as ally of former PM resigns - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Nigel Adams is the third Conservative MP in 24 hours to announce they are quitting the Commons. | UK Politics | So what happens next? Some MPs are actually cock-a-hoop despite the colossal mess. One tells me: "The man-baby has gone - so pleased!"
But allies talk up his chances of running for another seat some time. One former senior minister tells me "the question is does he plan to get another seat or even Mid-Beds?" - the constituency his close ally and former Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries has just left.
Another former cabinet minister says: "It would be very unwise for him to run again. He has a vociferous 20% in the party who like him but 80% don't. If he ran in a by-election the Lib Dems would murder him."
Would party HQ even let that happen? Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has changed the personnel in charge there. One senior figure pours a bucket of freezing water over the idea telling me: "Boris died today."
What is not clear yet is whether as that MP suggests the manner of his departure could "generate so much unrest I fear there will be an election much sooner than thought".
Johnson has thrown grenades at No 10 - not just the committee that has judged him - suggesting Sunak is not running a "proper Conservative" government.
One former ally says the ex-PM has "gone full circle, returning to his political home - a hut across the water where he can now lob rocks without any sense of responsibility or accountability - and that is ultimately very dangerous for his party and Sunak".
Read more from Laura here | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-65860705 |
Resignation statement in full as Boris Johnson steps down - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The former UK prime minister has resigned as a MP, saying there is no evidence that he misled Parliament. | UK Politics | Former Prime Minster Boris Johnson has announced that he is standing down as an MP, with immediate effect.
It comes after he received a report from the MP-led Privileges Committee into whether he misled Parliament over lockdown parties at Downing Street.
Here is his statement in full:
I have received a letter from the Privileges Committee making it clear - much to my amazement - that they are determined to use the proceedings against me to drive me out of Parliament.
They have still not produced a shred of evidence that I knowingly or recklessly misled the Commons.
They know perfectly well that when I spoke in the Commons, I was saying what I believed sincerely to be true and what I had been briefed to say, like any other minister. They know that I corrected the record as soon as possible; and they know that I and every other senior official and minister - including the current Prime Minister and then occupant of the same building, Rishi Sunak - believed that we were working lawfully together.
I have been an MP since 2001. I take my responsibilities seriously. I did not lie, and I believe that in their hearts, the Committee know it. But they have wilfully chosen to ignore the truth, because from the outset, their purpose has not been to discover the truth, or genuinely to understand what was in my mind when I spoke in the Commons.
Their purpose from the beginning has been to find me guilty, regardless of the facts. This is the very definition of a kangaroo court.
Most members of the Committee - especially the chair - had already expressed deeply prejudicial remarks about my guilt before they had even seen the evidence. They should have recused themselves.
In retrospect, it was naïve and trusting of me to think that these proceedings could be remotely useful or fair. But I was determined to believe in the system, and in justice, and to vindicate what I knew to be the truth.
It was the same faith in the impartiality of our systems that led me to commission Sue Gray. It is clear that my faith has been misplaced. Of course, it suits the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP to do whatever they can to remove me from Parliament.
Sadly, as we saw in July last year, there are currently some Tory MPs who share that view. I am not alone in thinking that there is a witch hunt under way, to take revenge for Brexit and ultimately to reverse the 2016 referendum result.
My removal is the necessary first step, and I believe there has been a concerted attempt to bring it about. I am afraid I no longer believe that it is any coincidence that Sue Gray - who investigated gatherings in Number 10 - is now the chief of staff designate of the Labour leader.
Nor do I believe that it is any coincidence that her supposedly impartial chief counsel, Daniel Stilitz KC, turned out to be a strong Labour supporter who repeatedly tweeted personal attacks on me and the government.
When I left office last year, the government was only a handful of points behind in the polls. That gap has now massively widened.
Just a few years after winning the biggest majority in almost half a century, that majority is now clearly at risk.
Our party needs urgently to recapture its sense of momentum and its belief in what this country can do.
We need to show how we are making the most of Brexit and we need in the next months to be setting out a pro-growth and pro-investment agenda. We need to cut business and personal taxes - and not just as pre-election gimmicks - rather than endlessly putting them up.
We must not be afraid to be a properly Conservative government.
Why have we so passively abandoned the prospect of a Free Trade Deal with the US? Why have we junked measures to help people into housing or to scrap EU directives or to promote animal welfare?
We need to deliver on the 2019 manifesto, which was endorsed by 14 million people. We should remember that more than 17 million voted for Brexit.
I am now being forced out of Parliament by a tiny handful of people, with no evidence to back up their assertions, and without the approval even of Conservative party members, let alone the wider electorate.
I believe that a dangerous and unsettling precedent is being set.
The Conservative Party has the time to recover its mojo and its ambition and to win the next election. I had looked forward to providing enthusiastic support as a backbench MP. Harriet Harman's committee has set out to make that objective completely untenable.
The Committee's report is riddled with inaccuracies and reeks of prejudice, but under their absurd and unjust process, I have no formal ability to challenge anything they say.
The Privileges Committee is there to protect the privileges of Parliament. That is a very important job. They should not be using their powers - which have only been very recently designed - to mount what is plainly a political hit job on someone they oppose.
It is in no one's interest, however, that the process the Committee has launched should continue for a single day further.
So I have today written to my Association in Uxbridge and South Ruislip to say that I am stepping down forthwith and triggering an immediate by-election.
I am very sorry to leave my wonderful constituency. It has been a huge honour to serve them, both as Mayor and MP.
But I am proud that after what is cumulatively a 15-year stint, I have helped to deliver, among other things, a vast new railway in the Elizabeth Line and full funding for a wonderful new state of the art hospital for Hillingdon, where enabling works have already begun.
I also remain hugely proud of all that we achieved in my time in office as prime minister: getting Brexit done, winning the biggest majority for 40 years and delivering the fastest vaccine roll out of any major European country, as well as leading global support for Ukraine.
It is very sad to be leaving Parliament - at least for now - but above all, I am bewildered and appalled that I can be forced out, anti-democratically, by a committee chaired and managed, by Harriet Harman, with such egregious bias.
• None I've been forced out over Partygate report - Johnson | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65863336 |
Champions League final 2023: Fans react to Manchester City's win against Inter Milan - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | null | City supporters in a Manchester fanzone voice their joy at their historic 1-0 win against Inter Milan. | null | Manchester City fans were jubilant when their team won 1-0 against Inter Milan, in Istanbul's Atatürk Olympic Stadium.
Watching from a fanzone in Manchester, supporters celebrated Man City completing a football treble following their Premier League and FA Cup victories.
"The blue moon has risen," said one ecstatic fan. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65868100 |
Blundell's School: Boy charged with two counts of attempted murder - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The boy, 16, is charged following a violent assault on two teenagers and an adult at a boarding school. | Devon | One boy is in a critical condition after the incident at Blundell's School
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with two counts of attempted murder after a violent assault at a boarding school left two students in hospital.
Police said the accused has also been charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent at Blundell's School near Tiverton in Devon.
The teenager, who cannot be named because of his age, is due to appear before magistrates in Exeter on Monday.
One of the boys who was injured is in a critical condition, police said.
The other boy remains in a stable but serious condition, both have their families with them and are being supported by officers.
One man, a member of staff at the school, also sustained injuries and was discharged from hospital on Friday, Devon and Cornwall Police said.
The school is working with police, said head teacher Bart Wielenga in a letter to parents
Supt Toby Davies said: "Our thoughts remain with the injured boys and their families in what must be a harrowing time for them.
"My officers are continuing to support them and the wider school community."
The area has been cordoned off for investigations and was expected to remain there for the rest of the day, he added.
He also reminded people that by law the suspect could not be identified.
"These rules are not solely for media organisations to adhere to; they also apply to members of the public and includes information posted via social media," he said.
"This may be seen as interfering with a live investigation and an active criminal trial, and therefore could see those who do not adhere found in contempt of court.
"We therefore remind the public that it is vital that they do not speculate on the identity of either the victims or the suspect in this case."
Blundell's School - which has fees of £41,325 a school year for a boarder - has not commented.
Head teacher Bart Wielenga sent a letter to parents and guardians about the incident, which happened at one of the boarding houses on Friday.
He added the school was working closely with the police and urged parents and guardians not to engage in speculation or post about the incident on social media.
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The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-65867858 |
Crispin Odey to leave hedge fund after sexual misconduct claims, partners say - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Crispin Odey, a prominent hedge fund boss, strenuously denies the allegations. | Business | Crispin Odey, who founded Odey Asset Management in 1991, strenuously denies the claims
Partners at a prominent finance firm have said its founder, Crispin Odey, is leaving after sexual assault and harassment allegations.
His exit follows a Financial Times report that 13 women had accused Mr Odey of misconduct over 25 years.
Mr Odey has strenuously denied the claims and hinted that he could resist his ousting from the firm.
Odey Asset Management said that it took allegations of misconduct "extremely seriously".
Mr Odey had been at the helm of the hedge fund he founded in 1991 which, at its peak, managed more than £10bn worth of investments.
Mr Odey, a prominent Brexit backer, claimed to have made hundreds of millions of pounds as sterling plummeted in the aftermath of the referendum vote.
On Thursday, the Financial Times reported that the allegations dated back to 1998 and the latest alleged incident was in December 2021.
At the weekend, it emerged that there would now be a separation between Odey Asset Management Group - which Mr Odey had a majority stake in - and Odey Asset Management LLP or the "partnership".
The partnership's executive committee said it has removed Mr Odey as a partner and added: "He will no longer have any economic or personal involvement in the partnership."
"Odey Asset Management Group Ltd will also cease to be a member and the partnership will now be owned and controlled by the remaining partners and managed as an independent legal entity."
It added that Mr Odey's main hedge fund will be run by co-manager Freddie Neave.
Mr Odey said that "none of the allegations have been stood up in a courtroom or an investigation".
Speaking to the Financial Times on Saturday, he also suggested he could fight the firm's decision. "You have to have [a] willing buyer, willing seller," he told the paper.
The executive committee said the firm's policies and procedures "have been followed at all times".
"The firm has been investigating allegations concerning Mr Odey, but the firm cannot comment in detail as it is bound by legal obligations of confidentiality."
Odey Asset Management said it had been "fully transparent" with the regulator Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and would contact clients over the weekend.
Odey Asset Management LLP will also undergo a "complete rebrand of the Partnership in the near future", the firm said. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65866895 |
DUP: Jonathan Buckley and Gavin Robinson run for deputy leadership - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Sir Jeffrey Donaldson says the party is in "healthy shape" as it prepares to vote for a new deputy leader. | Northern Ireland | Jonathan Buckley (left) and Gavin Robinson are going head to head in a vote for the deputy leadership
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is in "healthy shape" ahead of the election for its new deputy leader.
Paula Bradley has been the party's second in command since 2021 but is stepping down from the role.
East Belfast MP Gavin Robinson and Jonathan Buckley, who represents Upper Bann in the Stormont assembly, are in the running to replace her.
DUP MPs and assembly members are due to vote later at the party headquarters.
Ahead of the vote Sir Jeffrey said: "It's a healthy thing in a democratic political party that people have choice.
"It's a healthy sign that the DUP has young people like Gavin and Jonathan coming forward, wanting to take up senior positions."
Sir Jeffrey rejected any suggestion of a split in the party, adding that he had worked hard as leader to build unity over the past two years.
Paula Bradley has served as the DUP's deputy leader since May 2021
"I don't detect any sense that this is about splits or division and it's not unusual in a political party to have competition for posts such as this," he said.
"It demonstrates that the DUP is in healthy shape."
The result of the vote will be ratified at a later date.
Ms Bradley succeeded Lord Dodds as deputy leader and has held the post since May 2021 when Edwin Poots was elected as the DUP's leader.
She retained her seat in the council election last month.
The DUP is blocking the normal functioning of Stormont's power-sharing government and its legislative assembly as part of a protest against post-Brexit trade rules.
Changes were made to those trading arrangements in the Windsor Framework, agreed by the UK and the EU in March, but the DUP has said the new deal is not good enough.
As a result of the 16-month boycott Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill has not been able to take up the post of Northern Ireland's first minister.
The DUP, which is the second biggest party at Stormont and is entitled to the deputy first minister role, must return to power-sharing to allow those posts to be filled.
It has also meant that civil servants have been left to run Northern Ireland's public services amid a major budget crisis.
On Thursday Sir Jeffrey said he was hopeful of making progress in his talks with the UK government about what he required in order to agree a return to Stormont. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-65850120 |
Boris Johnson resignation: Former PM's political career... in 72 seconds - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | null | A look back on the former prime minister's political career as he announces as a resignation as an MP. | null | Former prime minister Boris Johnson has resigned as an MP and announced he is stepping down with immediate effect.
In a lengthy statement the ex-PM accused a Commons investigation of attempting to "drive me out".
Mr Johnson first became and MP in 2001, representing the constituency of Henley in Oxfordshire, since then he went on to become the Mayor of London, MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip and then the prime minister.
Here's a look back at his political career. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65860805 |
Dragos Tigau: Romania recalls Kenya ambassador over racist monkey slur - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Dragos Tigau made a racist comment at a meeting in April but has only now been disciplined. | Africa | Diplomats say they were shocked by Dragos Tigau's racist remark
Romania has recalled its ambassador to Kenya and apologised after he compared Africans to monkeys.
Dragos Tigau made the comments during a meeting at a UN building in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, on April 26.
According to the AFP news agency, Mr Tigau said "the African group has joined us" when he saw a monkey outside a window.
Mr Tigau's behaviour was first made public on Thursday by Kenyan foreign affairs official Kamau Macharia.
On Twitter Mr Macharia said he was left "appalled and disgusted" by the incident, and claimed that attempts were made to cover up Mr Tigau's behaviour.
African diplomats on Friday demanded a public apology, according to Kenya's Standard newspaper, insisting that a private apology was not enough.
On Saturday, Romania announced that it had only been informed of the incident this week and had now begun "a procedure to recall its ambassador".
"We deeply regret this situation and offer our apologies to all those who have been affected," the statement from Romania's foreign affairs ministry read.
"Any behaviours or comments of a racist nature are completely unacceptable," it added, saying it hoped it would not affect its ties with African countries.
Romania mainly engages with African nations through its membership of the European Union, but it has bilateral trade deals with Egypt among others.
The Kenyan government has not commented on the decision to recall Mr Tigau.
Romanian media have criticised his behaviour, and say this is not the first time the country has been embarrassed by insults dished out by diplomats.
In 2014, Romania's ambassador to Armenia was recalled after making anti-Semitic jokes about Jewish bosses and questioning the morality of same-sex relationships.
The following year, Bucharest apologised after invitations to a reception at its Paris embassy accidentally included unflattering descriptions of some guests - labelling them "ghastly" and "undesirable" among other things. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-65867104 |
Salford e-bike rider, 15, killed in ambulance crash was kindest boy, mum says - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Saul Cookson died when his e-bike collided with an ambulance after he was followed by police. | Manchester | Ms Frendo said Saul "always had the biggest infectious smile and was full of love"
A teenager who died when his e-bike collided with an ambulance after he was followed by police was "the most sweetest, kindest boy ever", his mother has said.
Saul Cookson, 15, was being followed by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) traffic officers in Salford on Thursday until bollards blocked their vehicle's path.
His e-bike then collided with the North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) vehicle.
Emma Frendo said her son had been "loved by all that met him".
"He was the sweetest, most kindest boy ever, and always had the biggest infectious smile and was full of love," she said.
"Saul was a much-loved son, brother, grandson, and nephew, loved by all that met him."
The Independent Office for Police Conduct has begun an investigation into Thursday's collision
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said an investigation into the collision.
It said Saul had been riding a black off-road Sur-Ron e-bike and was followed by officers along Fitzwarren Street and on to Lower Seedley Road at about 14:00 BST before the crash on Langworthy Road.
While not on an active call at the time of the crash, NWAS said its vehicle was being driven back to a nearby ambulance station.
Its crew were immediately able to treat the boy before taking him to hospital, where he later died.
Police and independent investigators have been examining the scene of the crash
Writing on Facebook, Taylor-Jade Cookson paid tribute to her brother and said "words cannot describe my feelings at the moment".
"Rest in peace Saul I love you," she added.
Dozens of people have been leaving flowers and cards at the scene.
Two sapphire blue, heart-shaped balloons have been tied at the foot of a lamppost, along with flowers, candles, cards and a large white banner full of handwritten messages.
Another, circled with red hearts, simply reads "Gone but not forgotten".
One of Saul's relatives who attended the scene to lay flowers said the family was "a mess" following their loss.
Saul's friend, 21-year-old Mitchell Murden, said he had been due to meet him on the day he died.
He described Saul as "a good lad" who "kept himself to himself".
Family friend Jacob Bailey said "no-one had a bad word to say" about Saul
Family friend Jacob Bailey, 19, told BBC Newsbeat he came to lay some flowers and pay his respects as he had "known Saul since I was about five".
"He was just one of those proper nice kids," he said.
"He never ever caused anyone any harm.
"No-one had a bad word to say about Saul."
Neighbour Karen Cosgrove said she had passed the scene at about 14:30 BST on Thursday and saw Saul lying on the ground.
"I walked away, I could barely look at it," she said.
"His mum was there, she was screaming.
Heartfelt messages have been left at the crash scene
Some concerns have been expressed by local people about the availability and use of high-powered e-bikes.
Mr Murden said "the majority" of young people in the area had them.
Mike McCusker, lead member for transport at Salford City Council, said there was "growing concern" in the community about e-bikes, particularly "very young men riding round without helmets on".
"The ones we have on our loan schemes are limited to about 15mph, but there are unregulated ones that can go up to speeds of 60mph.
"We don't think regulation is keeping track with the technological advancements around e-bikes."
Flowers and candles have also been left at the scene
In a statement, GMP said: "Our thoughts are with the family and friends of the boy who tragically died."
The IOPC said it had begun gathering evidence, including dashcam footage from the police vehicle, and had taken initial statements from two police officers, who were being treated as witnesses.
A representative said there was "no indication at this early time... of direct physical contact between the police vehicle and the e-bike", but examinations of both were "continuing".
IOPC regional director Catherine Bates said it was "important we understand the events leading up to this incident and will be looking at the actions and decision-making of police prior to the collision, including the reason for the decision to follow the bike".
She asked anyone who witnessed or had dashcam footage of the collision or "events leading up to it" to get in touch.
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• None Teen on e-bike dies after being followed by police | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-65854332 |
Nurse Lucy Letby deliberately misled jury, prosecutor says - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Lucy Letby is a "calculating woman" who lied "to try and get sympathy", a prosecutor tells her trial. | Liverpool | Lucy Letby, 33, is accused of murdering babies on a neo-natal ward
Nurse Lucy Letby has "deliberately misled" the jury on a number of occasions throughout her murder trial, a prosecutor has told a court.
On the final day of cross-examination, prosecutor Nick Johnson KC said Ms Letby was a "very calculating woman" who had lied "to try and get sympathy".
The 33-year-old is charged with murdering seven babies and attempting to murder 10 others at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016.
She has denied all charges against her.
Questioning the former nurse for a tenth day at Manchester Crown Court, Mr Johnson focused on the events following Ms Letby's removal from the neonatal unit in July 2016.
Jurors have previously heard that Ms Letby was moved to the Countess of Chester Hospital's "risk and patient safety office" after doctors raised concerns over her alleged involvement in baby deaths.
Senior doctors at the hospital requested Ms Letby be taken off front-line duties after the deaths of triplet brothers, known to the court as Child O and P for legal reasons, in June 2016.
Ms Letby was placed on a three-month "secondment" to the office and told she would be placed under "clinical supervision".
When she was arrested in July 2018, she told police she felt "panicked" and "overwhelmed" and had suicidal thoughts following the move.
She also previously told her trial she was only permitted to speak to a select few members of staff at the hospital during the period.
Mr Johnson said that claim was not correct and showed the court Facebook and phone records that were "peppered with [Ms Letby] socialising with lots of different people from that unit".
She agreed with his assertion that she had had "a very active social life", but denied his subsequent claim that she had "deliberately misled the jury about this background".
Lucy Letby is charged with murdering seven babies and attempting to murder 10 others at the Countess of Chester Hospital
He then asked her about her arrest, which he said she had claimed saw her being led away from her home in a nightgown.
He said Ms Letby was actually wearing a blue Lee Cooper leisure suit at the time.
She said she did not know why she had lied about that detail.
"You're a very calculating woman, aren't you, Lucy Letby?" Mr Johnson said.
"You tell lies deliberately and the reason you tell lies is to get sympathy and attention from people."
The prosecutor then asked Ms Letby about various notes which were found in her home when police searched it in 2018 and in particular, about one on which she had written that she would never marry or have children.
He asked her why she wrote this when she had "a house, a car [and] a boyfriend".
She agreed had those things, but added: "That's how I felt at the time."
"You felt like this because you knew you had killed and grievously injured these children," Mr Johnson said.
"That is the truth, you have murdered these children."
"I have never murdered a child or harmed any of them," she replied.
Lucy Letby claimed that hospital bosses had conspired against her to cover up shortcomings on the neonatal unit
He also asked the former nurse about social media searches which were made to find the parents of the children involved in the case.
She has previously said searching for people on Facebook was "a normal pattern of behaviour for me" and was not confined to those parents.
Mr Johnson repeatedly pressed Ms Letby to explain why she had searched for certain parents, adding that she was "a killer who was looking at your victims".
She denied that accusation, adding that the people had been "on my mind".
The former nurse was also asked about her claim that hospital bosses had conspired against her to cover up shortcomings on the neonatal unit.
She has previously told her trial that a "gang of four" doctors apportioned "blame" on to her "to cover up failings at the hospital".
Mr Johnson asked what the conspiracy between the four was.
"I believe there were shortcomings from the medical team and they put that on me," she said.
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The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-65854106 |
Covid inquiry: The questions we really want answers to - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | As a massive public inquiry in the UK opens to the public, we asked key people what questions they have. | Health | A massive inquiry to understand the UK's response to, and the impact of, the Covid-19 pandemic, throws its doors open later. Following a statement from chairwoman Baroness Heather Hallett, a film featuring bereaved families will be played. Not one of us was left untouched by the effects of the pandemic, and we all have questions. I asked a range of people who were in the eye of the Covid storm what one question each of them most wants answered.
Lobby Akinnola had been due to return to his family home in Royal Leamington Spa, Warkwickshire, to celebrate his 29th birthday when lockdown began in March 2020.
Instead, he stayed at home, in London, apart from his parents and four siblings. A month later, his father, Femi, was dead.
"It changed my life forever," Lobby says. "He was isolating in the living room of our home and that's where he died. He was 60 and fit and healthy. We never expected him to die."
Lobby Akinnola wants to ensure the death of his father, Femi, and others were not in vain
Femi is one of nearly 250,000 people killed by Covid in the UK - and Lobby, part of the Covid Bereaved Families for Justice campaign group, wants to ensure these deaths were "not in vain".
For him, the key question is: How can we better protect people when there is another pandemic?
A crucial part of that will be looking at why people belonging to ethnic minorities were at such greater risk. There is no "physiological reason" why they had worse outcomes, Lobby says. Instead, he believes it is linked to society - the jobs and housing conditions people belonging to ethnic minorities experience.
But the people who died from Covid - and those still struggling with complications known as long Covid - are not the only victims of the virus. As restrictions were imposed on the UK, at the start of the pandemic, the government's chief medical adviser, Prof Sir Chris Whitty, warned about the indirect costs. They have been huge.
Children were unable to attend school, businesses were closed, non-Covid treatment delayed and mixing banned, stopping everything from socialising to seeing dying loved ones in their final days.
The legacy of that remains, in terms of rising rates of mental-health problems, lost learning and the economic hit. It's also there in the continued high rates of non-Covid deaths and ill health as the impact of missed treatment for conditions such as cancer and heart disease materialises.
So a crucial element of the inquiry must be to look at why the government imposed restrictions - and whether they were always necessary.
One senior public health official, who played a key role in the pandemic and is due to give evidence, says it is hard to see how the first lockdown could have been avoided once the virus was here. Put simply: "We did not know what we were dealing with." But after the first wave was over and scientists understood more, the government should not have been so quick to reimpose restrictions.
In one 80-day period during autumn 2020, England went from few restrictions, to the "rule of six" limit to gatherings, tiered levels of restrictions by region, a national lockdown and back to tiers.
"We had so many rules and regulations people could not keep up," the official, who asked not to be named because of rules on what they can say in public ahead of the inquiry, says. "It was very top down and heavy handed. It goes against all the evidence of what works during disasters."
So they want to know: How did the UK get to have such complex and confusing rules?
"One of the things Sweden did was rely on the strong social consciousness of their population," the official says. "In the UK, we did not place enough trust in the public - it was damaging.
"We could have given them good information and guidance and let them act. The public showed throughout they were, on the whole, cautious and responsible." And closing schools to all but the most vulnerable children and those of key workers was the "biggest system failure" of the pandemic.
UK children spent six months remote learning, with hairdressers and pubs opening before schools in the first lockdown - a decision repeated for hairdressers in Scotland after the second UK-wide lockdown, in early 2021.
England's children's commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, is extremely worried about the impact this has had on children - even now, school attendance is below its pre-pandemic level.
So her big ask is: How are we going to support children to recover and avoid such harm in future pandemics?
"Where they need additional support, be that because they are worried about their mental health or because they have fallen behind at school, they want it quickly," Dame Rachel says.
Dame Rachel de Souza says children must be prioritised
"Children sacrificed so much to keep adults safe, we need to make sure we give something back - prioritising their wellbeing."
For Association of Directors of Public Health president Prof Jim McManus, it comes down one basic question: How do we avoid lockdowns in future pandemics?
"We will only do that if we are better prepared, act at the earliest stage and have good testing and contact tracing in place," he says.
"The UK and much of Europe and North America was largely underprepared for a pandemic of this magnitude - and that cost us."
The UK decided to stop community testing in late March. And in England, it took until May to launch a national large-scale contact-tracing system and September for the government to start giving sick pay to people being asked to isolate
The way care homes were supported is another topic that needs addressing.
About 40% of Covid deaths in the first few months were in care homes, as the lack of testing and personal protective equipment (PPE), heavy use of agency staff and decision to transfer, en masse, hospital patients to care homes let the virus rip through the sector.
And NHS workers want the role of austerity during the 2010s examined.
Adult nurse Stuart Tuckwood had never worked in intensive care but was deployed there to look after the sickest Covid patients during the first and second waves, working through breaks to start with because he was worried about using up the limited PPE.
"The fact I had to work in intensive care because we didn't have enough trained nurses says it all really," he says. "But it wasn't a surprise - staffing shortages were terrible in the lead up to the pandemic."
And the NHS - and other public services - cannot wait until the end of the inquiry to rectify the problems.
The first time nurse Stuart Tuckwood worked in intensive care was during the pandemic
"We need action now," Stuart says, "staff are having to strike to get the pay they need."
So his key question is: What should be done to tackle staffing shortages, so we don't face the situation again?
The wait for the inquiry is something others are worried about.
One epidemiologist who advised government during the pandemic and will also be giving evidence to the public inquiry so does not want to be named fears another pandemic could hit before the necessary changes have been made.
Some say the inquiry could well last five years.
The inquiry team says recommendations will begin next year, as it is being broken down into six different modules.
However, the epidemiologist says: "The modular approach makes sense - but some elements are going to get dragged out too long. We can't wait - pandemics happen every 10 years."
They are particularly concerned with how decision-making became skewed.
"There was no cost-benefit done on the use of restrictions which we would with other policy decisions," the epidemiologist says.
So they want to know: How should the system be changed "so we can work out the trade-offs" of the decisions we make?
"The phrase 'follow the science' became really unhelpful," the epidemiologist says. "There was no acknowledgement of the uncertainty.
"Instead, we got trapped into looking at it through a narrow lens of Covid. Even now, I am worried the inquiry has not quite got the focus right.
"If it just looks at Covid deaths in 2020 and 2021 and not what has been happening with other deaths since, the inquiry will come to the wrong conclusions. This is about more than just the virus." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-65843811 |
Diego Garcia: The tropical island ‘hell’ for dozens of stranded migrants - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | They set sail to flee persecution, they say - but ended up on an isolated island in the Indian Ocean. | UK | An image provided by one of the migrants shows people on the deck of their fishing boat
Dozens of migrants have been stranded for months on a tiny British territory in the Indian Ocean after being rescued from their struggling fishing boat.
They are desperate to leave for a safe place, describing conditions as hellish, but the unusual legal status of the island has left them feeling frightened and helpless.
All names of the migrants have been changed
Early one morning in October 2021, a fishing boat was spotted struggling near the island of Diego Garcia.
The vessel immediately attracted the attention of the island's authorities - the territory hosts a secretive UK-US military base, hundreds of miles away from any other population, and unauthorised visitors are forbidden.
It soon became clear that the 89 people on board - Sri Lankan Tamils who said they were fleeing persecution - weren't actually intending to land on the island.
They had planned to seek asylum in Canada, a claim backed up by maps, diary entries and GPS data on board, before rough weather and engine problems pulled them off course.
As the boat ran into trouble, one man on board said they started looking for the nearest place of safety. "We saw a bit of light and started sailing towards Diego Garcia," he told the BBC.
A Royal Navy ship escorted the boat to land, and the group were put into temporary accommodation.
That was 20 months ago. And communication between officials on the island and London gives clues as to why the migrants - some of whom have since attempted suicide due to their dire situation - are still there.
Communications in the immediate aftermath of their arrival were obtained through a Freedom of Information request to the Foreign Office by a lawyer representing some of the migrants, and shared with the BBC. They show officials wrestling with what to do about the "unprecedented development".
Early messages spoke of plans to "investigate repair options to the engine", but said "we can't rule out" that the group will try to launch asylum claims from Diego Garcia.
By the next day, that scenario had become a reality.
The Tamils had presented a letter to the commander of the British forces on the island saying they were fleeing persecution, having set sail from Tamil Nadu in India 18 days earlier, and "expressing a wish to be sent to a safe country".
Many have since claimed to have links with the former Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka, who were defeated in the civil war that ended in 2009, and say they have faced persecution as a result. Some allege they were victims of torture or sexual assault.
An official "information note", approved in London by the director of overseas territories, Paul Candler, said the "unexpected arrival" of the group had marked the first time asylum had been sought on British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) - the islands' official name.
It added that, if approached by the media, the official "defensive line" would be that the UK government was "aware of the incident" and was "working urgently to resolve the situation".
The group "currently have no means of communication with the outside world… [but] with time passing there is a high likelihood news will spread," it added.
In the coming months, as messages were going back and forth to London, more boats arrived on Diego Garcia. At one point numbers in the camp swelled to at least 150, lawyers estimate, as others arrived on the island from Sri Lanka.
Packed on their boat, the Marayan, the Tamils intended to voyage to Canada and claim asylum there
Meanwhile, the reality of their current situation was beginning to dawn on the asylum seekers.
"I was initially happy, thinking: 'I survived, I am getting food, and I am away from torture,'" Lakshani, one of the migrants, told the BBC last month.
But she said the tropical island refuge soon "turned out to be a hell".
She says she was sexually assaulted in October last year by a man who travelled in the same boat and was housed in the same tent as her.
"I started to scream, but no-one came to help," she said.
When she felt able to make an official complaint, she says she was told it was difficult to gather evidence as she had washed her clothes.
She says she had to continue staying in the same tent as her alleged attacker for almost a week until authorities finally responded to her demand to have him moved.
The UK government and BIOT administration did not respond to requests for comment about this allegation.
Lakshani and others told the BBC they or people they knew had attempted suicide or had self-harmed in their distress at the suffocating conditions, including by swallowing sharp objects.
Lawyers say they are aware of at least 12 suicide attempts and allegations of at least two sexual assaults within the camp.
"We are mentally and physically exhausted… We are living a lifeless life. I feel like I am living like a dead man," said Vithusan, another migrant. He told the BBC he had self-harmed twice.
Another man, Aadhavan, said that after having his initial claim for protection rejected, he "lost all hope" and decided to take his own life.
"I didn't want to live here like a caged animal forever," he said.
He told another migrant in the camp of his suicide attempt and she alerted the camp authorities, who arranged medical treatment.
Another woman, Shanthi, said her husband had also attempted suicide.
Lakshani said her own attempt to take her life had been provoked by an officer at the camp telling her she would be sent back to Sri Lanka, where she alleges she was raped and tortured by soldiers in 2021.
The UK government and G4S - the private security company brought in to guard the migrant camp - did not respond to requests for comment on this specific claim.
G4S said its officers treated migrants on the island with "dignity and respect at all times", while a UK government spokesperson said the "welfare and safety" of migrants on BIOT was "paramount" and that "all allegations of mistreatment are taken seriously and fully investigated".
The spokesperson added that the BIOT administration was providing "extensive medical support".
There have also been hunger strikes on the island, which lawyers say have involved children.
Another image sent by a migrant shows the tents, which are each shared by about a dozen people and watched over by security guards
In response to one earlier this year, lawyers say the BIOT commissioner confiscated migrants' phones, stopped access to the communal telephone and withdrew medical treatment "unless the individuals were willing to sign a form disclaiming certain liabilities of the BIOT administration".
The BIOT administration has dismissed this allegation in court documents, saying that in response to one hunger strike, sharp objects were removed from the camp and other measures taken to prevent self-harm.
All can agree that the Diego Garcia military base was not a place intended to house asylum seekers.
Britain took control of the Chagos Islands, of which Diego Garcia is part, from its then colony, Mauritius, in 1965 and went on to evict its population of more than 1,000 people to make way for the base.
Mauritius, which won independence from the UK in 1968, maintains the islands are its own and the United Nations' highest court has ruled that the UK's administration of the territory is "unlawful" and must end.
The UK resisted international pressure to begin talks about the islands - until late last year, when it agreed to open negotiations.
In recent decades, US planes have been sent from the base to bomb Afghanistan and Iraq - and it has also reportedly been used as a so-called CIA "black site" - a facility used to house and interrogate terror suspects.
Court documents filed in London say tents previously set up as Covid isolation facilities for military personnel are being used as a makeshift migrant camp. Fences surround the camp, and inside there are basic medical facilities and a canteen. G4S guards must accompany the migrants if they leave the area.
"We are the parrots, we are in a cage," said Shanthi, of the lack of freedom.
Lawyers representing the migrants say basic education became available about a year ago, but that classes have at times had to be held outside because of a rat infestation.
Some migrants have since returned home, having either given up their claim or had it rejected. Others set sail for the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, a French territory, hoping to claim asylum there, the lawyers say.
Currently, at least 60 Tamils remain on the island. They are awaiting decisions about their fate or challenging earlier rulings in convoluted legal processes playing out thousands of miles away in the UK.
While the UK is signed up to international laws about the treatment of refugees, court papers say this doesn't apply to BIOT, an area described as being "constitutionally distinct and separate from the UK".
A separate process, based on the idea that no-one should be returned to a country where they face torture or inhumane treatment, has been established to determine if they should be sent back to Sri Lanka or to a "safe third country".
Lawyer Tessa Gregory says the London firm she works for, Leigh Day, has launched a judicial review on behalf of a number of asylum seekers on Diego Garcia, challenging the "lawfulness" of this process - which she describes as "fundamentally unfair".
She says decisions to return some migrants to Sri Lanka were made based on rushed initial interviews, while later, fuller interviews were marred by translation errors. Others have been left "in limbo" as the UK government has not yet identified a suitable safe third country, she said.
Meanwhile, the UK government said the BIOT administration was "considering migrants' protection claims under BIOT law and in line with international legal obligations".
The UK office of the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) told the BBC it was concerned by reports of the "deteriorating health situation" on Diego Garcia and had requested access from UK authorities, but this had not yet been granted.
Emilie McDonnell, UK advocacy and communications co-ordinator at Human Rights Watch, said the British government "should consider any and all options to ensure the welfare of these asylum seekers who are on British-controlled territory and therefore should be protected by the British government".
The UK has said it will not take in any of the Diego Garcia asylum seekers whose claims are approved, according to lawyers.
Three of the Tamils who arrived on Diego Garcia are currently in Rwanda receiving medical treatment after being evacuated from the island following self-harm and suicide attempts. Their transfer is not part of the deal struck by the British and Rwandan governments to send some asylum seekers from the UK to the east African country.
At one point, five of the migrants were sent to Rwanda for medical treatment - two were later returned to Diego Garcia
In a letter sent to one of them in May, and seen by the BBC, the BIOT administration said it would find and pay for private accommodation while they received treatment in Rwanda - including therapy.
"If you are not content with the proposal… we can arrange for your return to Diego Garcia. There is no other option available at this time," it said.
Four of the asylum seekers have had their claims to be sent to a "safe third country" approved. A letter sent two months ago to one of them, seen by the BBC, said "every effort will be made to do this expeditiously".
In a separate statement to the BBC this week, the UK government said it was "working tirelessly with the BIOT administration to find a long-term solution to [the migrants'] current situation."
But the situation for everyone could continue to drag on with no clear timeframe for finding a safe third country, and long legal processes for those disputing rejections.
After 20 months of waiting, one asylum seeker said everyone seemed to have "lost their hope". | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65777863 |
Annecy stabbings suspect held over attempted murders - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Four children and two adults were attacked in a park in France's Alpine region on Thursday. | Europe | A man suspected of stabbing four young children in a playground in the French resort of Annecy is held on attempted murder charges, French prosecutors say.
The children, aged between one and three, were attacked with a knife in a park in the Alpine region on Thursday.
Prosecutors said the actions of Syrian-born Abdelmasih Hanoun, who they referred to as Abdelmasih H, did not appear linked to terrorism.
The suspect, 31, remained silent in police interviews, prosecutors said.
He has not been cooperating with investigators - in fact, he has refused to communicate with them and has spent much of the last 48 hours curled up in the corner of his cell.
Police had to physically carry him to his brief hearing before a judge on Saturday, where he was formally placed under investigation for attempted murder. He will remain in custody.
Local prosecutor Lise Bonnet-Mathis said during a news conference that the suspect had been assessed by a psychiatrist while in custody, and had been determined fit to appear before a court.
She added that it was too early to make any kind of conclusion regarding his mental state.
The brutal attack on victims so young - its horror captured on video - has shocked France.
This story contains details some readers may find distressing.
Footage uploaded to social media showed people screaming soon after a man holding a knife entered a playground next to a lake in Annecy.
Video that is too graphic for broadcast showed him attacking a child in a pushchair.
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He then fled the scene and stabbed an elderly man nearby. Police intervened and the attacker was shot in the legs.
President Emmanuel Macron described it as an "act of cowardice" and travelled to the south-eastern region on Friday to visit victims and their families in hospital.
The attack has also fuelled further fierce debate about immigration policy in France, after it was found that the suspect has refugee status in Sweden and had also unsuccessfully been seeking asylum in France, Italy and Switzerland.
Ms Bonnet-Mathis said the four children - including a British girl who was on holiday with her parents in Annecy - were no longer in critical conditions in hospital.
The British girl was stabbed once by the attacker and was gravely wounded but did not sustain life-threatening injuries, Ms Bonnet-Mathis said.
Two of the other children were French nationals from the eastern region of Haute-Savoie, she added.
The other was a Dutch national who has been transferred to a hospital in Geneva for treatment.
Two adults who were also injured during the attack are also out of danger.
One of the adults, who was first stabbed by the attacker, was hit by a police bullet while officers were attempting to stop the assailant, the prosecutor confirmed.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Youssouf, 78, says there was no reason for the attack
Officials are referring to the suspect as Abdelmasih H but his full surname is widely reported.
The knifeman's motivation remains unclear. Witnesses said that during the incident the attacker invoked the name of Jesus Christ.
And in an unsuccessful asylum application last year for refugee status in France, he said he was a Syrian Christian.
He had recently come to France after leaving behind a wife and three-year-old daughter in Sweden - where he has refugee status.
French television broadcast pictures of the suspect being moved from the police station, ahead of his appearance before a judge.
BFM images showed the suspect being carried on a stretcher to a black car at the rear of the police station, and then a convoy of vehicles leaving the area. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65866514 |
Chris Mason: The ghost of Boris Johnson haunts Rishi Sunak - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The ex-PM, with a life-long knack for throwing stones and grabbing attention, is doing just that. | UK Politics | In his seven months as prime minister, the most notable characteristic Rishi Sunak has brought to government is - relatively speaking at least - stability.
But 2022 - or much of it - was defined, politically, by a soap opera of Conservative squabbling.
It didn't disappear with the arrival of Mr Sunak in Number 10, but it quietened down substantially.
Downing Street was an observer of events on Friday - it only found out about Boris Johnson's resignation as an MP when the rest of us did.
A former prime minister, in Boris Johnson, with a life-long knack for throwing stones and grabbing attention, doing just that.
A current prime minister, in Rishi Sunak, languishing in the opinion polls and now confronting two appointments with a disgruntled electorate, courtesy of two people meant to be on his own side.
And so, yet again, the party of government winding and wounding itself in public.
I am going to sound very 2022 now by inviting you into my notebook and my WhatsApps, so you can hear, as I have been doing, a sense of what Conservative MPs are saying.
Boris Johnson provokes adulation and irritation. Or to put it more bluntly, love and hate.
Some within the party tell me he is the best Tory prime minister they have had since Margaret Thatcher.
Others, as a man who should never have been allowed within a mile of Downing Street.
And parallels are being drawn with former US president Donald Trump.
Two huge characters, with vast charisma and even greater capacity for controversy. Shaking up their parties, never far from the headlines, always leaving people guessing about what they will do next.
"He is a medieval king, rewarding his gang," is how one senior Conservative described Mr Johnson's resignation honours list to me.
"He has taken unedifying to a whole new level," said another figure who has known him closely for years.
And yet others are crestfallen, even heartbroken, at his departure - convinced that without him they would have never become MPs in the first place.
The soap opera of squabbling starts again.
As you may have guessed, Boris Johnson is not likely to vanish into obscurity.
Some in the party think he is finished. Others, far from it.
As one former cabinet minister told me: "The party still doesn't feel Sunak is a winner, even those who dislike Boris. It isn't over…"
And so the plates are spinning again.
Boris Johnson finds himself just where he likes to be: the centre of attention, onlookers asking what on earth will he do next?
It is the last thing the prime minister needs. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65864011 |
Thunderstorms and hail to sweep across Scotland - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The Met Office has warned of hail and "torrential" rain in some parts as a result of warm weather. | Scotland | The yellow weather warning is in place from 12:00 to 21:00 BST on Sunday
Thunderstorms and hail are expected to sweep across Scotland as a result of high temperatures.
The Met Office has issued a yellow warning affecting much of the west coast and Highlands from 12:00 until 21:00 BST on Sunday.
Forecasters said conditions would include lightning strikes, strong winds and "torrential" rain in some parts.
Further warnings for thunder affecting the north east and Dumfries and Galloway are in place for Monday.
Again these will last between 12:00 and 21:00 BST.
The nature of showers on Sunday will be scattered, meaning some parts within the warning area will remain dry.
The areas experiencing the worst rain could see 30-40mm in an hour.
There is also a small chance that homes and businesses could be flooded quickly, with damage to some buildings from floodwater, the Met Office said.
The warning extends to Wales and central and southern parts of England.
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It comes after an extended spell of hot, dry weather across the UK.
Temperatures reached 29.8°C in Auchincruive, Ayrshire, on Saturday - making it the warmest day of the year in Scotland.
A temperature of 30.4°C in Northolt, west London, and Wisley, Surrey made it the UK's hottest day of the year too.
Earlier this week the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service issued a Scotland-wide warning of a "very high" wildfire risk, which remains in place until Saturday.
A wildfire near Cannich in the Highlands had been burning for almost two weeks and caused extensive damage to an RSPB Scotland nature reserve.
Meanwhile the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) has reiterated warnings on water scarcity.
Its most recent report on Thursday said the issue was most acute around Loch Maree in Wester Ross, increasing the risk in the area to "significant".
The agency also said Loch Ness - Scotland's largest freshwater loch by volume - had dropped to its lowest water level in 32 years last month amid dry conditions. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-65865593 |
Man v horse: Runner becomes only fourth to beat horse - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The winner outran the fastest horse by over 10 minutes in the 22-mile race held in mid Wales. | Wales | The race pits man against horse over a 22.5-mile course in Llanwrtyd Wells, Powys
A runner has become only the fourth man to outrun the horse in the annual man v horse race.
The 22-mile event in Llanwrtyd Wells, Powys, began in 1980 after a pub chat discussing whether a man or horse was faster crossing mountainous terrain.
Winner Daniel Connolly came first with a time of two hours, 24 minutes and 38 seconds.
The first horse, DNS Ronaldo, was ridden by Kate Atkinson and took two hours, 34 minutes and 25 seconds.
Daniel Connolly won with a time of two hours, 24 minutes and 38 seconds
Organiser Bob Greenough said: "It's the first time the event has been won two years in a row by a runner, and only the fourth time overall in 42 years of the race.
"It was an incredibly hot day today. The event went remarkably well. Everyone is in very good spirits."
The first woman across the line was Suzy Whatmough who did it in three hours, eight minutes and 24 seconds.
The event began in 1980 after a chat in a pub about which would be fastest crossing mountainous terrain
Last year's winner, Ricky Lightfoot, said he had been awake for 29 hours before the event after flying from Tenerife to claim victory.
On crossing the line, the 6ft 4in (1.93m) athlete had no idea whether he had won as the people and animals took slightly different routes.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65867327 |
Yr Wyddfa: Can Wales' highest mountain really go plastic-free? - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | It's an uphill challenge, but there are plans to cut out all single-use plastics on Yr Wyddfa. | Wales | Sun bathes the summit of Yr Wyddfa, but this environment is not as unpolluted as it should be
The peak of Yr Wyddfa rises 1,085m (3,560ft) above the Welsh landscape.
It is the highest point in Britain until Scotland's peaks overtake it, with the high point of Ben Nevis 260 miles (418km) away as the crow flies.
The remoteness of Yr Wyddfa, or Snowdon as it is also known, surely makes it one of the most pristine environments in the land.
But research shows it is as much under siege as many more populous places from a growing threat to the natural world - plastic.
A survey carried out for Eryri - also called Snowdonia - National Park found microplastics in the soil samples all the way along the Llanberis path to the summit.
Significant amounts were also found at the peak itself, to say nothing of the volume of visible litter left behind on the slopes.
The mountain and its protectors are trying to fight back. The park launched the Plastic Free Yr Wyddfa project in April with the aim of making the mountain the world's first to become plastic-free.
For Alec Young, the Plastic Free Yr Wyddfa officer, this work is personal. Born and bred within the park, he returned after some years away with a background in sustainability, looking to have "a more local impact on the place that I love" and "change it for the better".
Project officer Alec Young is a native of the area and keen to help restore its environment
There is no suggestion of environmental police guarding the entrances to Eryri, removing single-use plastic from unwary visitors.
Instead, Alec and the project's partners want to encourage behaviour change in visitors, locals and business owners, some of whom are already on board.
The aim is to significantly reduce all litter on the mountain, with a focus on single-use plastics.
Previously headteachers in south east England, they "wanted to stop being tourists who came to the area" and contribute to the local economy and environment.
Fiona and Rob Nicholson at Plas Coch Guesthouse, which they are making single-plastic use free
With 95% of their guests coming specifically to climb Yr Wyddfa, the couple have paid close attention to how they can help walkers to eat and drink without having an environmental impact.
Fiona said: "We launched our packed lunch initiative, and called it fuel your mountain day, because we thought it's not just a lunch. It's got to get you up the mountain and back down safely as well.
"We ask guests what sandwich they would like and we make that, and then we have a brown paper bag to put that in, and then we lay out those other things they can take with them.
"We've got metal water bottles that they can take. We've got flasks and ask them what hot drink they'd like in there.
"We have fresh fruit and we do send them up the mountain with a green composting bag and ask them to bring back everything that they take with them."
There is also a recycling station at the guest house where guests can deposit their used paper bags and any food waste - or soft plastics if they have some of their own - for composting or recycling. They also have a water refill station for passing tourists.
Rob Nicholson (r) helps out on volunteer litter picks of Yr Wyddfa
They have stopped offering anything that comes in single-use plastic, such as packs of biscuits or UHT milk pots, and replaced them with fresh home-baked flapjacks, Welsh cakes and jugs of fresh milk which guests can help themselves to.
The couple said making such changes had saved them about £1,000 a year on waste charges, as they no longer need to pay for commercial refuse collection.
"Every time we've done something to remove single-use plastics, it feels like we've improved the quality of what we do," said Rob.
John Harold, director of Cymdeithas Eryri, the Snowdonia Society, said the organisation had been at the "sharp end" of clearing litter from the mountain and the wider national park for over 50 years.
"Over time it's become increasingly dominated by single use plastics," he said.
Snowdonia Society director John Harold says prevention is going to be key in reducing plastic waste on Yr Wyddfa
John cited a litter collection carried out on just one section of path which yielded several hundred disposable drinks bottles.
"When you multiply that across the area and across the year, these are phenomenal numbers," he said.
Cymdeithas Eryri removes around a tonne of litter from Yr Wyddfa and the main tourist hotspots in Eryri every year. As most of it is light plastic waste, it amounts to a huge volume.
He said the project was about "respect", "pride" and "inspiring people".
He added: "This isn't a place where you can police your way to an answer."
Trains will run all the way to the top of Yr Wyddfa in June for the first time since 2019
Snowdon Mountain Railway operates the visitor train and Hafod Eryri, the café at the top, as well as a number of outlets at the mountain's base.
It is preparing to resume journeys all the way up Yr Wyddfa and to reopen the café in June after nearly four years of pandemic-induced closure.
The railway's commercial manager, Vince Hughes, said his first meeting with Alec had opened his eyes to areas of potential change.
"I think a lot of people might think it means plastic bottles, drink bottles etc, but as he explained, if you look at our other retail areas, the amount of single-use plastic was going unnoticed," Mr Hughes said.
One "easy fix" was magnets arriving individually wrapped in plastic which was immediately discarded when they went on display.
"Why are they putting them into these packets that we don't want and nobody's using?" he asked.
Supplying a café at the top of a mountain without its own water supply is no mean feat if you hope to avoid plastic use completely.
The café needs 10,000 litres of water transported up by train every day to cover its own uses and toilet requirements, and cannot suddenly switch to refilling bottles for people.
Revamping supplies in the café will also be a challenging task. Switching to cans has not previously been a success because they are not resealable.
But solutions are being explored. A water borehole company is to make preliminary investigations on whether it could extract drinking water from the mountain itself, which could be a gamechanger for the café.
Alec said it was important not to "demonise" plastic which, when used appropriately, can be fantastically useful.
The trick instead will be to encourage visitors to reduce usage and remove the single-use plastic they bring with them.
"A lot of it is around, how do you convince people to prepare better, think differently, 'refill before the hill', reuse and recycle," Alec said.
Catherine and Lee Munton agree with the "positive message" of the campaign
So what do visitors to Yr Wyddfa make of the initiative?
"We're all about sustainability - I think that's a really positive message," said Catherine Munton, from Newcastle upon Tyne.
She and husband Lee were not surprised to hear the amount of rubbish collected. "It's awful that people don't take it home," added Catherine.
Michelle Marshall and Sharon Langton think people should take their rubbish home with them
Michelle Marshall and Sharon Langton, from Middleton, near Manchester, said more bins could help.
"Why don't people just put [rubbish] in their bag. Everybody has got a back-pack - just take it home," added Sharon.
Derek Littlejohn was disappointed with the amount of rubbish he saw
Derek Littlejohn, from Aberdeenshire was disappointed by the amount of plastic rubbish he had seen.
"Having just walked up there and seen how much plastic is on the actual mountain itself, it's a shame to see it in that sort of state," he said.He supported going plastic-free.
"Anything that stops that from happening would be a fantastic thing to do."
Andrew Franco doesn't think people need to use plastic when hiking
"I feel that as a hiker you probably have a job to appreciate all the nature that you are hiking in," said Andrew Franco, from California."Reusable water bottles, thermoses - great ideas. You don't need plastic bottles."If you've got snacks, wrap them up in kitchen paper or parchment paper - it's easy. You don't need plastic for whatever you are taking with you." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65613260 |
PSNI assaults: One officer assaulted every day in north west - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | Ch Insp Yvonne McManus gave the latest figures after eight officers were assaulted in one evening. | Northern Ireland | At least one police officer was assaulted every day in the first four months of this year in the north west, a senior officer has said.
Eight officers were assaulted in four separate incidents in Londonderry on Wednesday evening.
Ch Insp Yvonne McManus said so many assaults in one evening was "exceptional for our district".
But she said officers are increasingly being subjected to attacks.
"In relation to where we are as a district, and I know Derry City and Strabane is no exception, between January and April we have had 34.5 assaults per month - that is more than one officer assaulted per day," she told BBC Radio Foyle's The North West Today programme.
"Increasingly our officers are subject to attacks and we are here to help deal with extremely complex issues - issues around vulnerability - and regrettably we are forced to try and resolve these and at time officers are exposed to serious risk themselves".
Ch Insp McManus said the eight officers injured on Wednesday had all been able to remain on duty.
Three people have been charged to court and another reported to the Public Prosecution Service in relation to the incidents on Wednesday, she added.
Ch Insp McManus urged the public not to take officers for granted.
"At times they are dealing with very dangerous circumstances and they put themselves in harm's way to protect others and keep the community safe," she said.
Earlier this year the PSNI said assaults resulting in injuries to officers are at a five-year high.
At that time the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, which represents officers, said greater deterrents - including tougher sentencing by the court and the use of Tasers - are needed to prevent assaults on officers. | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-65854261 |
Concerns over Loch Ness' falling water levels - BBC News | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews | The famous loch along with the River Ness have hit record low water marks. | Highlands & Islands | Alpacas from Loch Ness Alpacas near Dores cooling off at the loch earlier this week
Concerns have been raised over water levels on Loch Ness and the River Ness.
The loch dropped to its lowest level in 32 years last month amid dry conditions, according to Scottish Environment Protection Agency figures.
Ness fishery board said levels remained concerningly low and claimed water that could help ease the situation was being stored - unused - for hydro-power.
Energy company SSE Renewables said it was managing its water use sensitively amid challenging weather conditions.
Loch Ness is Scotland's largest freshwater loch by volume, while the River Ness flows from Loch Dochfour, at top of Loch Ness, and out to sea at Inverness. The loch and river are part of what is called the Ness system, an area of burns, rivers and lochs that extends south-west of Inverness.
On 24 May, Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) recorded a water level of just over 109cm (3.5ft) at Foyers, which is the location of a pumped storage hydro scheme that uses water from Loch Ness. Water is pumped from the loch to an upper reservoir and released back when generating electricity.
The Sepa figure is the lowest level according to records going back to 1 December 1990. It has risen slightly since, but continues to be classed as "low".
Sepa said the area had seen low rainfall.
It said in May the Loch Ness area had been one of the driest in the UK, and Inverness had received just a third of its usual long-term average rainfall.
It added the Ness region had seen below average rainfall in winter and spring. On Friday, the agency increased its water scarcity warning for the area to "moderate".
Sepa also upgraded the risk in the Loch Maree area in the Highlands to "significant", and placed 37 areas across the Firth of Clyde at "alert".
Ness fishery board said the River Ness had hit record lows twice this year
The River Ness, left, and Caledonian Canal at Dochfour
Concerns have been raised about the health of the Ness
Ness District Salmon Fishery Board, the statutory body responsible for the protection and enhancement of salmon and sea trout fisheries in the Ness area, has expressed serious concerns about the health of the River Ness.
It said the river was at levels more usually seen at the end of July and August, with large areas drying out.
Director Brian Shaw said there were consequences for wild salmon populations, the river's conservation status and its categorisation in terms of angling.
Problems include salmon being unable to travel easily up river from the sea, and increased water temperature.
Mr Shaw said climate change was a factor, and the board had noted a trend for drier winters and springs.
But he said when levels were low, hydro-electric generation had a huge effect. Mr Shaw also said water was drawn at Dochfour for the Caledonian Canal that would otherwise flow into the River Ness.
"There is a tremendous amount of concern and I think one of the key things is we are so early in the summer and already twice the River Ness has got to its lowest level on record, said Mr Shaw.
He added: "Most people wouldn't appreciate just how controlled the Ness system is.
"When it gets down to these low levels almost every aspect of it is controlled by hydro schemes on the system."
He said releasing water stored further up the system at SSE's Loch Garry and Loch Loyne reservoirs could help alleviate the situation.
Naturalist Adrian Shine said Loch Ness was at the lowest he had seen since 1989
Naturalist Adrian Shine, who has studied Loch Ness for many years, said the loch was at its lowest level he had seen since 1989.
He said: "Loch Ness is very deep so you are not going to see an immense difference over its surface and the sides are very steep, except in certain areas.
"The most noticeable area is Urquhart Bay and there is a bay within that bay that is dry, and I don't remember that happening in '89."
Fiona Cairns, who has lived by the loch for most of her life and runs Loch Ness Alpacas, also said it was at the lowest she had ever seen it.
She said her cheeky alpacas were able to sneak into their other field by going around the end of fences usually inaccessible due to the depth of the loch.
"We've had very little rain over the last few weeks and the burns are dry so not filling the loch," she added.
SSE Renewables said the dry weather had affected rivers across the Highlands.
A spokesperson said: "While these dry conditions are challenging, our teams have been working closely with key environmental stakeholders such as Sepa and NatureScot to manage our hydro operations in accordance with our environmental obligations, while continuing to deliver zero carbon electricity from our hydro and pumped storage assets."
The spokesperson added that sensitive management of water had helped maintain higher flows in the River Ness than would have been present if hydro-power was not in existence, while at the same time maintaining levels at lochs Loyne and Garry to protect designated nesting sites of protected birds.
Scottish Canals said water levels were at an unprecedented low due to the weather.
Environment manager Olivia Lassiere said: "We anticipate more instances like this occurring going forward, due to the likely impacts of climate change.
"Our water usage and operation of the Caledonian Canal is authorised and regulated by Sepa, and we have robust plans in place to manage extreme situations like this, which include engaging with Sepa for their latest advice." | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-65855228 |
French Open final 2023: Novak Djokovic plays Casper Ruud in Roland Garros men's showpiece - BBC Sport | 2023-06-10T00:00:00 | null | Novak Djokovic says he is relishing the chance to make tennis history as he aims to become the first man to win 23 Grand Slam singles titles. | null | Last updated on .From the section Tennis
Coverage: Live text from 13:00 BST and radio commentary from 13:30 on BBC Radio 5 Live & the BBC Sport website and app.
Novak Djokovic says he is relishing the chance to make tennis history as he aims to become the first man to win 23 Grand Slam titles.
Djokovic, 36, faces Norway's Casper Ruud, 24, in the men's singles final at the French Open on Sunday.
A victory would take the Serb clear of Rafael Nadal's total of 22 wins.
"I like the feeling, it's an incredible privilege to be able to make history in the sport I truly love and has given me so much," Djokovic said.
"The motivation is very high, as you can imagine. There is one more to go to hopefully get my hands on the trophy.
"I have put myself in another really ideal position to win a Grand Slam.
"That's basically what still drives me when I wake up in the morning and think about things I want to achieve. The Grand Slams are what drives me the most."
Another victory would give Djokovic his third French Open title and he would also become the first man to win each of the four Grand Slam tournaments at least three times.
"I've been very fortunate that most of the matches in tournaments I've played in the last few years, there is history on the line," Djokovic said.
"As far as all the records that are on the line, again it's flattering, it's great, but I need to win.
"I'm proud of all my achievements and I try to stay present and in the moment. I know the job is not finished and we have another match."
Ruud reached the finals of the French Open and the US Open in 2022 but lost on both occasions, against Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz respectively.
At Roland Garros, Ruud won only six games in three sets as Nadal completed a routine 6-3 6-3 6-0 victory for his 22nd Grand Slam title.
"Obviously, I would like to try to do better than last year," Ruud said. "Let's see if I have learned something from the two previous ones that I played last year.
"It's going to be tough, for sure. He's playing for his 23rd, I'm playing for my first. So I'm going to just try to play without pressure and just try to enjoy the moment.
"That was my mentality last year as well, and it didn't go my way.
"It just feels great to be back in the final. I didn't think or necessarily believe in the beginning of the tournament I was going to be in the final."
Djokovic and Ruud have never played each other in a Grand Slam, but have met four times on the ATP Tour, with the Serb winning all the matches and not even dropping a set.
"It is going to be the toughest challenge of the year for me to play Novak," Ruud added.
"Novak has played great this tournament and in the Grand Slams he always raises his level.
"I have never beaten him before, so I'm going to have to try to come up with a better game plan.
"I know I'm going to have to play my 'A' game, my best level I've ever played if I want to have a chance against him."
How they reached the final
Djokovic did not drop a set in the first four rounds, beating Aleksandar Kovacevic of the United States, Marton Fucsovics of Hungary, 29th seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina of Spain and Juan Pablo Varillas of Peru.
Russia's Karen Khachanov, the 11th seed, became the first player to take a set off Djokovic in their quarter-final before the former world number one took the next three sets.
A match with current world number one Carlos Alcaraz followed in the semi-finals and it was set up to be a classic at one set all in a high quality encounter before the 20-year-old Spaniard struggled physically, with Djokovic winning 6-3 5-7 6-1 6-1.
Ruud began with wins over Swedish qualifier Elias Ymer and Giulio Zeppieri of Italy in round two then fought back from a set down against Zhizhen Zhang of China in the third round.
He saw off Chile's Nicolas Jarry in the last 16, with his first win over a seed coming with the four-set victory over Denmark's Holger Rune, the sixth seed, in the quarter-finals.
Ruud made it back-to-back French Open final appearances thanks to a convincing 6-3 6-4 6-0 win over 22nd seed Alexander Zverev of Germany.
Can you name all the players Novak Djokovic has beaten in Grand Slam finals? Share your score with your friends!
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