The number of women's individual sport traps has reached its lowest level in a decade, figures show.

The number of women's individual sport traps has reached its lowest level in a decade, figures show.

The number of women's individual sport traps has reached its lowest level in a decade, figures show.

Guernsey have retained their Island Games team table tennis title after beating Gotland 4-2 in Jersey.

Article: A number of options are being considered to improve care in the north of the county, including removing consultant-led services from Whitehaven's West Cumberland Hospital.
The boss of North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust said it does not look like Whitehaven has the "infrastructure" to maintain services.
Midwives have raised safety concerns.
They have warned mothers and babies "may die" if consultant-led maternity services are removed from Whitehaven and concentrated at Carlisle Cumberland Infirmary.
Trust chief executive Stephen Eames told BBC Cumbria: "The options we are looking at are likely to mean there will be changes in maternity services and they're likely to mean we'll need to concentrate our expertise in our consultant staff in one place.
"Everybody involved would prefer a consultant-led service in both, but I think the reality is it isn't just about maternity, it's about the other clinical services that support it.
"So while we've made some improvements in children's services recruitment it doesn't look like we can recruit the infrastructure to support two independent consultant-led services."
Midwives at Whitehaven are concerned mothers facing unexpected problems would need a potentially risky 40-mile (64km) transfer across the county.
Earlier this month, Bernadette Bowness said: "We're going to become a third world area because of our inaccessibility to a consultant-led unit.
"If ladies have to be transferred, mothers may die, babies may die.
"If babies have foetal distress, what with the transfer time they may end up brain damaged."
A public consultation exercise will be launched next month to gauge opinion on the future direction of services provided by the trust.
The organisation has been in special measures since 2014 after Care Quality Commission inspectors judged it to be failing to provide a sufficiently high level of care in a number of areas.

Summary: Further doubt has been cast over the future of specialist-led maternity care at a Cumbrian hospital.
###
Article: Department for Education data shows 10% of nursery staff earn less than Â£7.20 an hour the minimum for over-25s.
The Family and Childcare Trust says the government must ensure the nurseries it subsidises do not flout the law.
But a group representing private, voluntary and independent sector nurseries rejected the trust's claims.
Ellen Broome, deputy chief executive of the Family and Childcare Trust, said nursery workers cared for and educated the next generation and deserved decent pay.
"But instead they are being exploited and paid illegal poverty wages. This cannot be right," she said.
She urged central and local government to act immediately to make sure that every childcare worker was paid a decent wage and that taxpayers' money did not go to employers who broke the law.
"High quality childcare does not come on the cheap," she added.
The trust took data from the DfE's childcare provider survey published last month.
It then took figures on the total number of childcare workers from research carried out by the Institute of Education in London.
But the Pre-Schools Learning Alliance, which represents private, independent and voluntary early years settings, said: "The DfE survey that this claim is based on began collecting data in March 2016 - the month before the National Living Wage was actually introduced."
It is clear, however, from the published survey that the data collection went on until July.
The Pre-Schools Learning Alliance said: "No childcare provider should be paying their employees less than the national minimum or living wage, and it is of course right that any instances of this happening are investigated and dealt with appropriately.
"However, we completely reject the claim that such breaches are happening on anywhere near the scale that the Family and Childcare Trust are suggesting, and our analysis of the same DfE data indicates that any such suggestions are both misleading and irresponsible."
It said: "There's no doubt that low pay in the early years sector remains a significant problem,...

Summary: Up to 20,000 nursery workers are illegally being paid below the minimum wage in England, analysis of government data by a childcare charity suggests.
###
Article: The Office of Rail and Road said 12.3% of trains - nearly one in eight - were not on time last year - the worst performance for a 12-month period since the year ending September 2006, at 12.5%.
More than a quarter of Govia Thameslink Railway services, owner of strike-hit Southern, were not on time, it said.
Rail operators said strikes had hit punctuality in south-east England.
But elsewhere, punctuality was at a "record high", said the Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operators and Network Rail.
The Rail, Maritime and Transport union announced on Wednesday that its members on Southern will walk out for 24 hours on 22 February in the row over guards' roles on trains.
And on Thursday, it was announced that drivers' union Aslef had rejected a deal with Southern rail that would have ended their dispute.
The rail industry counts trains as being on time if they arrive at their terminating stations within five minutes of their schedule for commuter services and within 10 minutes for long-distance routes.
Lianna Etkind, of the Campaign for Better Transport, said the figures showed that train firms were "still delivering a very lacklustre service" despite "sky-high prices".
The figures also showed 3.8% of trains across Britain were cancelled or at least half an hour late last year.
Ms Etkind said the government needed to give passengers "an affordable and reliable rail service".
"They should begin by ensuring that rail contracts give stronger incentives for punctuality, reliability and passenger service, as has successfully happened on London Overground and Merseyrail," she said.
She also said there should be "investment into those worn-out parts of the network which cause delays".
A spokesman for the Rail Delivery Group said: "In London and the south east, a combination of congestion on the network, prolonged strike action and disruption while major upgrades take place is hitting punctuality.
"Across the railway, train operators and Network Rail are working together every day to deliver more reliable and...

Summary: The number of trains that run on time in the UK has reached its lowest level in a decade, figures show.
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Article: Guernsey won gold in 2011, the last time table tennis was included in the sports programme for the Island Games.
Alice Loveridge won her women's singles match and teamed up with Dawn Morgan and Garry Dodd for doubles wins.
Dodd beat Bjorn Axelsson 3-1 in the singles, but lost to Nisse Lundberg, who also beat Alex Robinson 3-0 in the opening men's singles match.
Gotland and Guernsey have shared the table tennis gold medals between them for the past decade.
Gotland took gold in 2009, when Guernsey were third, and beat the Sarnians in the 2007 final.
That victory was revenge for the 2005 final, when Guernsey beat the Swedish island.Island hotshots increase medal tally
Jonathan De La Haye won Jersey's seventh shooting gold medal at the 2015 Island Games.
De La Haye took top spot in the men's individual sport trap, beating Dan Bishop of the Isle of Wight by a single point with Guernsey's Andrew Ashplant getting the bronze.
Sarah Campion and Susan De Gruchy won silver in the women's 100 yards prone rifle team event, finishing 15 points behind eventual winners Isle of Man.
Fellow Jersey shooter Caroline De La Haye won bronze in the women's individual sport trap.
Guernsey's Jacek Hanca has won silver in the 50m free pistol, finishing 13 points off Matthew Reed from the Isle of Wight.
Sark celebrated a second shooting medal as Nick Dewe returned to the podium. Dewe, who won team automatic ball trap bronze on Monday, took silver in the individual event.

Summary:


The population of Northern Ireland is projected to rise by 5.3% to 1,938,700 by 2024.

Article: Property prices rose by 7.1% on average in the year to the end of January, with the typical home costing Â£191,812, the Land Registry said.
The fastest increase was a 13.9% rise in London, compared with the slowest of 0.2% in the North East of England.
Official figures showed the average cost of renting rose at a slower pace.
Private rental prices paid by tenants in Britain rose by 2.6% in the 12 months to the end of January, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. Rents rose by 2.7% in England, 0.3% in Wales and 0.8% in Scotland, it concluded.
These figures include new instructions and people already in a rental arrangement. Agents say that the cost of new rental agreements is going up much faster than that.
The Land Registry said that the North East and North West of England recorded falls in property prices in January compared with December.
All other regions saw a month-on-month rise in prices ranging from a 3.7% increase in Wales to a 0.6% rise in Yorkshire and the Humber.
These monthly figures can be relatively volatile and the way these changes are calculated varies between house price surveys.
The Land Registry said that, in the year to the end of January, the cost of flats and maisonettes rose faster than any other type of property, up by 8.2%.
Many commentators are predicting further house price increases in many areas of the UK, owing to the number of homes on the market failing to match demand.

Summary: House prices rose in every region of England and Wales in the past year - but the pace of increase was vastly different, figures show.
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Article: Media playback is not supported on this device
The Super 8s format, introduced in 2015, sees the 12-team Super League and Championship split into three mini-leagues after 23 regular-season rounds.
"I'm not a fan of it," ex-Great Britain coach Noble told the Super League Show.
"If you want to build a competition, you've got to have a reasonable amount of stability."
He continued: "We put things off and off. If not now, then when? We've got to find a formula that's going to please everybody."
Teams in the second Super 8s group - the Qualifiers - must finish in the top three, or win the 'Million Pound Game', to play in the Super League in the following season.
Apart from the structure issue, Super League general manager Mark Foster recently said that the RFL would be willing to listen to clubs seeking to relocate to new territory.
The discussion has made more pertinent by the situation with Wakefield, who are to leave Belle Vue at the end of the season and have struggled to reach agreement for a new, purpose-built venue in their home borough.
Under a new proposal, a team in Wakefield's position could apply to move to a new location with a suitable venue and interested investors, as rugby union side Wasps did when they relocated from London to Coventry.
"Why not have a Super League team in Cumbria?" Noble added. "I think new teams bring new excitement. We've got take some brave steps.
"If there is a vision for something, we should all work towards it. If we can't find a way forward with that, then where are we going?"

Summary: The Rugby Football League needs to take "brave steps" and reshuffle the game's structure, says Toronto Wolfpack director of rugby Brian Noble.
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Article: Data from the country's Geonet network of around 1,200 GPS monitoring stations suggest a large displacement following the massive quake.
Dr Roger Musson from the British Geological Survey (BGS) told BBC News the movement observed following the quake was "in line with what you get when you have an earthquake this big".
The quake probably shifted Earth on its axis by about 6.5 inches (16.5cm) and caused the planet to rotate somewhat faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 millionths of a second.
Japan's meteorological agency has proposed updating the magnitude of the earthquake to 9.0.
This would make it the joint fifth biggest quake since instrumental records began, but other agencies have not yet followed suit.
Japan lies on the infamous "Ring of Fire", the line of frequent quakes and volcanic eruptions that encircles virtually the entire Pacific Rim.
The dense rock making up the Pacific Ocean's floor is being pulled down (subducted) underneath Japan as it moves westwards towards Eurasia.
Dr Brian Baptie, also from the BGS, explained that the quake occurred on the subduction zone along two tectonic plates, the Pacific plate to the east and another plate to the west, which many geologists regard as a continuation of the North American plate.
As the Pacific plate moves westwards underneath Japan, it drags the North American plate downwards and westwards with it.
As an earthquake occurs, the upper plate lurches upwards and eastwards, releasing strain built up as the two plates grind against one another.
In the most recent case, this movement gave a kick to the seabed, displacing a large amount of water and leading to the tsunami waves which devastated coastal areas in the Sendai region.
"The Pacific plate has moved a maximum of 20m westwards, but the amount of movement will vary even within the fault," said Dr Musson.
"That doesn't mean the whole country has shifted by that amount because the actual displacement will decay further from the fault."
Geonet is operated by Japan's Geographical Survey...

Summary: Japan's coastline may have shifted by as much as 4m (13ft) to the east following Friday's 8.9 Magnitude earthquake, according to experts.
###
Article: The figures come from a report produced by the NI Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra).
It uses assumptions about births, deaths and migration to project population changes.
It predicts that the working-age population will rise by less than 1% but the population aged 65 and over is projected to increase by almost 26%.
The report also assumes that the level of migration to Northern Ireland will continue to be very low.
It breaks down population changes by local government district and predicts the largest rise of 10.4%, or 21,400 people, in Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon.
The smallest increase is predicted for Derry City and Strabane, up by 1.5% or 2,200 people.
Derry City and Strabane is one of seven out of 11 areas projected to see a decline in their work-age populations.
Over the longer term, the population of Northern Ireland is projected to reach two million by mid-2034.
By mid-2038, annual population growth is projected to fall below 0.2% for the first time since mid-1999, due to a falling number of births and rising number of deaths as a result of an ageing population.
The population aged 65 and over is projected to increase by 74.4%, or 498,500 people, from mid-2014 to mid-2039, with the result that one in four people (24.7%) will be in this age category.
The report does not attempt to predict the impact that future government policies or changing economic circumstances might have on demographic behaviour.

Summary:

Article: {{document}}

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The party's leader, David Kern, has been criticised for his "unavoidable" comments on the referendum.
The party's leader, David Kern, has been criticised for his "unavoidable" comments on the referendum.
The party's leader, David Kern, has been criticised for his "unavoid

Ealing Central and Acton is one of about 20 seats that could shape the outcome of the election.

Article: The business lobby group said the UK's dependence on consumer spending and mortgages meant it was "particularly sensitive" to interest rates.
The warning came as the BCC trimmed its growth forecast for 2014 to 3% from 3.2% and for 2015 to 2.6% from 2.8%.
It said the lowered forecast was an "ominous warning sign".
The group blamed lower-than-expected growth in services, household consumption and exports for the cut in its growth forecast.
"Downgrades to our growth forecast are a warning sign that we still face a number of hurdles to securing a balanced and sustainable recovery," said BCC director general John Longworth.
He warned that factors such as the weak eurozone economy, slowing growth in emerging markets and political uncertainty in Ukraine and the Middle East were hitting both business and consumer confidence.
The BCC's chief economist David Kern said the impact of these "unavoidable factors" meant low interest rates were important to "minimise the risk of the recovery stalling".
Interest rates have been at their historic low of 0.5% for more than five years, with just two out of the Bank of England's nine-strong Monetary Policy Committee voting to increase rates in recent months.
The BCC expects a first interest rise to 0.75% in the third quarter of next year, with rates reaching 1.75% by the end of 2016.
Its prediction for growth this year is in line with the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR)'s recent Autumn Statement forecast.
The government's independent forecaster expects 3% growth this year and 2.4% next year.
Despite the downgrade, if the predictions are correct, 2014 will mark the UK's fastest rate of growth for seven years.

Summary: A premature interest rate rise could present a "huge risk" to the British economy, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has warned.
###
Article: The Times Educational Supplement asked councils how much maintained schools had asked to borrow since 2013-14.
Borrowing in the 137 of 174 local authorities that responded rose £20m to £56.7m, the TES said, over three years.
The government says school budgets have been protected, but heads say they continue to face rising cost pressures.
The Department for Education added it was up to head teachers to prevent their schools from going into debt.
"We have always been clear that local authorities need to work with schools to prevent any deficits and surpluses becoming significant," it said.
The figures obtained under Freedom of Information laws looked at the financial years 2013-14, 2014-15, and up to the end of November 2015.
They do not cover academies which are not maintained by local authorities.
The data also revealed the average permitted deficit per school, for indebted schools, has almost doubled to £122,828 since 2013-14.
Malcolm Trobe, deputy general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said cost pressures were really biting in schools.
"The simple fact is that there has been no real-terms increase in schools' budgets, and schools have had to deal with extra costs and inflationary pressures," he said.
Although the chancellor's Spending Review confirmed per pupil funding will be stable as numbers increase, the Institute of Fiscal Studies has warned there will be significant cost pressures of up to 8% on schools over the next five years.
Schools will have to find extra resources to cover rises in pension, National Insurance and pay costs over the course of this Parliament.
Mr Trobe predicted the situation was likely to get worse, saying: "If you can't balance the budget this year, you're going to struggle to balance the budget next year and to pay off the deficit."
The DfE is to look at what needs to be done to rebalance school funding from area to area and is launching a consultation on the issue.
Presently schools are funded at quite different levels, as local authorities receive...

Summary: State school debt in England and Wales has increased sharply in the past three years, as budgets tighten and cost pressures hit schools, a report says.
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Article: Ulster Farmer's Union president Ian Marshall told MPs that there were "husbands and wives who are completely opposed on this".
He said it was a "head versus heart" debate for many.
Mr Marshall said farmers were balancing the need for access to European markets against concerns over loss of identity.
But he repeated the union's position that in the "absence of a compelling case" for exit, it believed continued EU membership was the better option.
He told MPs that farming was not delivering profits and the industry relied on subsidies to survive.
Mr Marshall and the union's chief executive Wesley Aston were giving evidence to a parliamentary inquiry into issues around the referendum.
During more than an hour of evidence they were asked about subsidies, red tape and access to markets.
The officials said Northern Ireland's 30,000 farmers needed "information, guarantees and assurances to come to an informed decision".
The DUP's Ian Paisley said in "every day" of his 18 years as an elected representative he had had complaints from farmers about the complexity of the Common Agricultural Policy.
And he insisted that after an exit, the UK government would continue to provide financial support to farmers.
Mr Aston said key elements of any new UK arrangement post-Brexit would be a continuation of subsidies and measures to reduce red tape.
MPs were told that in 2013/14 farmers received Â£266m in direct subsidy support and a further Â£83m went to the wider rural economy.
The union officials questioned whether the UK government would replace EU subsidies to the same level.
Mr Marshall said in the absence of guarantees they would have "huge concerns" about what any new UK scheme would potentially look like.

Summary: Some Northern Ireland farm families are split down the middle over the EU referendum debate, a Westminster committee has been told.
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Article: Media playback is unsupported on your device
7 April 2015 Last updated at 08:39 BST
Labour needs a swing of 3.9% to oust the Conservative candidate in the west London constituency.
Some residents are concerned that local services cannot support the extra residents that house building will attract.
BBC London's Victoria Hollins reports.
The known candidates for the 2015 General Election for Ealing Central and Acton are:
Angie Bray Conservative Party, Jon Ball Liberal Democrats, Peter Florence UK Independence Party, Rupa Huq Labour Party, Tom Sharman Green Party

Summary:


The Lego Batman Movie has been released on DVD and Blu-ray.
The film is set in the UK and is set in the UK.
The film is set in the UK and is set in the UK.
The film is set in the UK.
The film is set in the UK.
The

Scores of local authorities in England plan to increase council tax by up to 5% in 2017-8, according to research.

Article: The 17-year-old attacked Gordon Friel, 40, in Paisley last September, leaving him with a string of injuries including bleeding on the brain.
He had earlier pled guilty to assaulting Mr Friel to his severe injury and to danger of his life.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was jailed for three years and four months.
He was initially charged with attempted murder for what the judge described as a "savage assault".
Two girls - aged 17 and 16 - have also admitted a charge of assaulting the tannery worker.
The 17-year-old girl was ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work and the 16-year-old 100 hours. Neither of the girls can be identified.
The High Court in Glasgow heard the victim was set upon after he tried to act as a peacemaker when two teenagers began arguing.
Mr Friel had been standing in Paisley's High Street eating a takeaway when the row broke out.
He approached the pair and told the bigger of the two the smaller one did not want a fight.
Prosecutor David Taylor said: "At this point the 17-year-old girl became involved, dragging Gordon to the ground and punching and kicking him on the body.
"She was joined by the 16-year-old girl who shouted 'get him' and began punching him."
Mr Friel managed to get away before the 17-year-old boy arrived, the court was told.
The boy - who wrongly believed Mr Friel had attacked the older girl - and others then chased him to Forbes Place.
The group went on to stamp on the victim's head, leaving a "footwear mark" on his head.
He suffered bleeding in the brain, a liver injury and rib fractures, and needed three operations.
Mr Taylor said: "Before the incident Mr Friel weighed around 11 stone. On his discharge from hospital his weight was five-and-a-half stone.
"He was so weak he had to use a Zimmer frame to aid walking."
The court was told Mr Friel is now back at work and is expected to make a full recovery, although he has no memory of his ordeal.
The 17-year-old boy's lawyer, Billy Lavelle, said his client was now "ashamed of his actions".

Summary: A teenager who stamped on a man who was trying to break up a fight has been jailed.
###
Article: The Lego Movie follow-up took the top spot with $55.6m (£44.4m), while Fifty Shades Darker attracted $46.8m (£37.4m), according to estimates.
Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan both reprised their Fifty Shades of Grey roles, but the sequel couldn't match its predecessor's $85.2m ($68m) debut.
Based on EL James's erotic fiction, the film has received stinging reviews.
Keanu Reeves hit-man sequel John Wick: Chapter 2 took third place in the US and Canada.
The John Wick follow-up took $30m (£24m) between Friday and Sunday, more than double the original made when it opened in 2014.
The new Lego offering is a computer-generated action comedy that sees Batman try to stop Gotham City being taken over by The Joker.
The film, in which Will Arnett voices the Caped Crusader, was boosted by good reviews and a lack of family-friendly competition.
Rounding out the top five were M Night Shyamalan's psychological thriller Split, whose $9.3m (£7.4m) weekend takings swelled its total US and Canada earnings to $112.3m (£89.7m).
Oscar contender Hidden Figures followed, its Friday to Sunday takings $8m (£6.4m) boosting its total to $131.5m (£105m).
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

Summary: The Lego Batman Movie has spanked Fifty Shades Darker in a battle of the sequels at the US box office.
###
Article: 19 February 2016 Last updated at 15:18 GMT
Researchers at the University of Roehampton, in England, studied a group of ten king penguins.
They measured the penguins' weight and studied their movements on a treadmill, finding that fatter birds were less steady on their feet.
The team think wobbly penguins may face greater danger from predators as they slide around and struggle to stay upright.

Summary: A new study has found penguins have more of a wobblier waddle when they put on weight.
###
Article: The Local Government Information Unit said 94% of the 131 councils it spoke to were intending to put up bills, with their finances at "breaking point".
A third of these, 34% in total, intend to hike bills by more than 2% in April.
Councils, many of whom have frozen bills in recent years, say it will not be enough to plug the funding "gap" exacerbated by the cost of social care.
But the government says council tax is expected to be lower in real terms at the end of this Parliament than it was in 2010.
Although councils in Wales were included in the survey, the Welsh government has said it will not allow councils to raise bills to pay for social care.
Ministers say they are bringing forward money to help councils pay for social care by increasing the "precept" - a supplement that councils are able to charge on bills - from 2% to 5% over the next two years.
Years of cuts to central government funding since 2011 have put pressure on the budgets of the 375 councils in England and Wales, with many paring back core services. Financial pressures on county councils and unitary authorities that provide adult social care have become particularly acute in the past year.
Surrey County Council abandoned controversial plans this week to hold a referendum on a 15% rise in council tax which it said was needed to pay for social care. It will now increase bills by 4.99% - the maximum it can do without holding a public vote.
Labour have accused the government of doing a sweetheart deal with the Tory-controlled council to call off the referendum - claims it denies.
Publishing its research, the Local Government Information Unit said five district councils which do not provide social care had wanted to hold local referendums to sanction council tax rises above 2% but had "thought better" of it in recent weeks.
Inflation, as measured by the CPI index, currently stands at 1.6% but is projected to rise to 2.7% next year.
The LGIU said there was growing concern in town halls that the current system of funding local authorities -...

Summary:


A retired police officer has reported Derbyshire police to the Home Office over claims they withheld evidence in a 1973 murder case.

Article: Thistle say that, if not, the two clubs and Hamilton would be due compensation for having fewer guaranteed games with Celtic and Rangers next season.
"That means an expected loss in revenues for the club of £120,000," Thistle suggested in a statement.
The Scottish Professional Football League has yet to comment.
Since the top flight was expanded to 12 clubs in 2013, the league has split into two sections of six teams for the final five fixtures.
"In previous seasons, where both Rangers and Celtic were in the Premiership, pre-split fixtures have been organised to ensure that every club plays three home games against the Old Firm," said Thistle.
"Without any notification from the SPFL to the contrary, we had expected that this practice would continue this season and that is the basis on which we and other clubs have budgeted.
"Having had no communication from the SPFL explaining these changes prior to this morning's announcement, Partick Thistle intends to seek compensation from the SPFL for all clubs concerned, or that they reconsider the fixture list to ensure a level playing field for all."
Thistle point out that Dundee, Hearts and Inverness Caledonian Thistle will have four home games each against the Old Firm before the split.
Expressing "anger and frustration", the Glasgow club say this will hand each of those clubs "an unexpected bonus" of around £120,000 each for the coming season.
Thistle, who had been looking forward to extra city derbies following Rangers' return to the top flight after a gap of four years, argue that this will also hamper them, Accies and Well in their quest for league points.
"Financial implications aside, we believe there is a significant sporting disadvantage created by the fixture list as it stands," they state.
"Pre-split, we will make four trips away to the two biggest clubs in the country while some clubs will only make two."
Thistle's statement was followed by Motherwell's board expressing its "extreme anger", saying it was a situation that had never occurred under the...

Summary: Motherwell and Partick Thistle have expressed their anger at new Scottish Premiership fixtures and are demanding an amended schedule.
###
Article: And those EU students who are already attending UK universities will continue to receive financial support.
The Student Loans Company has sought to reassure students and applicants following the EU referendum.
And Mr Johnson has tweeted: "UK welcomes EU students."
"Current students and this autumn's applicants will continue to receive student finance for duration of their course," said the Twitter message from the minister.
Universities have been seeking clarity about the implications of Brexit for their EU students, international exchanges and for funding from EU research projects.
A statement from the Student Loans Company says that those EU students who are already studying in the UK will not face any changes to financial support, such as loans to cover tuition fees.
The current arrangements will also remain in place for those who have applied and are expecting to begin university courses in the autumn.
But the arrangements for EU students beginning courses in the following year - autumn 2017 - have still to be clarified.
There are about 125,000 EU students in higher education in the UK, with Germany and France the biggest senders.
But among those non-UK students starting university in the UK last year, there were more students from China than from all the EU countries put together.
Following the vote to leave the EU, Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group of universities, said that the Brexit  decision "creates significant uncertainty" for higher education.
She said that the Russell Group universities would seek assurances from the government that "staff and students currently working and studying at our universities can continue to do so after the UK negotiates leaving the EU".
Universities have been particularly concerned about the future of EU research funding, with analysis by the Royal Society showing that the UK is one of the largest recipients.
It suggests that between 2007 and 2013, the UK received 8.8bn euros (Â£7.3bn) in direct EU research funding and had contributed 5.4bn euros...

Summary: Students from the European Union starting university courses in the UK this autumn will have their student loans funding honoured, University Minister Jo Johnson has said.
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Article: The incident took place in Cables Wynd at about 23:00 on Friday 26 August.
A 25-year-old man suffered a gunshot wound to his leg and was taken to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Police said it was an "isolated incident".
A firearm, believed to be used in the incident, was recovered. A 30-year-old has also previously been arrested and charged.
The 25-year-old was expected to appear at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Monday.

Summary: A 25-year-old man has been arrested over the discharge of a firearm in Leith, Edinburgh.
###
Article: Bakewell man Stephen Downing was convicted in 1974 for killing Wendy Sewell but that was overturned in 2002.
Chris Clark said he has uncovered a crucial pathology report showing she was strangled, which was never told to the jury.
The Home Office said it would send any new criminal evidence to the police.
Evidence of police misconduct would be referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, the Home Office added.
Derbyshire police said the case was closed after a reinvestigation in 2002.
Mr Clark, a retired Norfolk police officer, said he has sent his findings to the Home Office after obtaining the original pathology report last month.
He said he believed the report showed Mrs Sewell had clear signs of being strangled.
She was found battered in a Bakewell cemetery in 1973 and died in hospital two days later.
Mr Downing admitted beating her with a pickaxe handle but later retracted that statement, only to be found guilty by a jury.
"I'm reporting the facts as I see them. The pathologist had evidence in his report that could have exonerated Stephen Downing," Mr Clark said.
He said the pathologist's report showed bruising on her neck consistent with a "knotted ligature" used to garrotte her and a rash in her lungs and airways, possibly caused by strangulation.
Mr Clark said none of this was used in Mr Downing's trial. He added the evidence may mean her death was linked to the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe.
Mr Downing was 17 at the time of Mrs Sewell's murder but was assessed as having a mental age of 11.
His father Ray Downing and Matlock Mercury editor Don Hale campaigned for his release and in 2002 the Court of Appeal found his conviction unsafe because of "procedural reasons".
Mr Hale said the pathology report directly conflicted with the evidence the police presented at the time and called for an independent investigation into the murder.
"This information was available within two or three days of Mr Downing being arrested and it completely contradicts this so-called confession," he said.
But...

Summary:


The UK's online sales volume increased by 1.7% in November from the month before, the Office for National Statistics said.
Compared with the same month last year, sales were up 1.4% in November from October, and were also up 1.4% from the same point a year earlier.

UK retail sales rose by more than expected in November, as shops offered promotions at the end of the month in the run up to Black Friday.

Article: Letter combinations such as HJ or NS - denoting Hitler Youth and National Socialism - have long been prohibited on personalised plates in Austria.
Now transport officials have published a list of more than 30 more cryptic codes that have been banned.
They include number combinations such as 88, which represents "Heil Hitler".
New legislation, which came into force on Thursday, also outlaws the use of IS or ISIS on personalised number plates in a bid to stop people showing their support for the Islamic State group.
"It has been forbidden to have obvious Nazi number plates since personalised plates went on sale in 1989," a spokeswoman for Austria's transport ministry told the BBC.
"But then we learned that the far-right scene is moving away from the more obvious codes to more hidden ones.
"So we had to change the law. Civil servants deciding if someone can choose a certain number plate now know which codes are being used by the far-right scene."
Combinations no longer allowed include:
Only new number plates will be affected by the change in the law.
Abbreviations now outlawed include FG, which stands for "Fuehrer's Geburtstag", meaning "leader's birthday", and WP for "white power".
Number combinations have not previously been included, but now codes such as 18 - meaning 'Adolf Hitler' because of where A and H come in the alphabet - are also now prohibited.
The new list was compiled in co-operation with the Mauthausen Committee, an organisation representing former concentration camp prisoners. Officials say it is not exhaustive.
Austrian Transport Minister Alois Stoeger, who pushed for the law change, has said: "National Socialist ideology has no place in our society."
More than half a million Austrians have currently personalised licence plates, according to Austria's public broadcaster, ORF.
The move in Austria follows similar efforts in Germany to crack down on neo-Nazi symbols.
In Germany, the law says that number plates must not offend public morals. Each state has its own list of banned combinations, and...

Summary: Austria is cracking down on personalised number plates used by neo-Nazis, by banning lesser-known codes with hidden far-right symbolism.
###
Article: Critics said the Forest Heath District Council's Core Strategy Development Plan would destroy the unique, horse-friendly character of the town.
Racehorse owner Lord Derby wanted to build about 1,200 houses, a hotel, park and ride scheme and a retail park on the 160-acre Hatchfield Farm site.
Mr Justice Collins said an EU planning directive had not been complied with.
The judge quashed the proposed central housing policy of the core strategy as it affects Newmarket.
He said a strategic environmental assessment did not contain all the relevant information.
Forest Heath District Council had adopted the new housing strategy in May last year.
The council was refused leave to appeal.
Lord Derby had supported the new strategy and applied for planning permission for the houses, hotel, park-and-ride scheme and retail park.
His planning application was refused, but the appeal process is continuing and could be affected by the High Court's decision.
Previously racehorse trainers and prominent figures in the racing world had said the extra traffic caused by the development would make it unsafe for the 3,000 horses that cross Newmarket's roads each day.
They also said urban development would ultimately lead to the demise of Newmarket as a racing town.
Lord Derby said he believed the development was the best way to meet targets for new homes, and the last thing he intended to do was threaten the town.

Summary: Plans for a controversial housing strategy for Newmarket have been ruled "legally flawed" by the High Court.
###
Article: US comedian Ari Shaffir is 15 minutes late for our interview.
"I get lost a lot," he says apologetically. He is in Scotland, performing at the Edinburgh fringe festival.
He couldn't map app his way to the BBC studio because, for the past 20 months, he has been without a smartphone.
In December 2014, Shaffir was growing concerned about the amount of time he was spending using his iPhone - especially on social media - and was considering abandoning his data plan so that he could only access the internet via wi-fi.
"I was noticing a lot of distraction on my part - constantly checking social media, not to mention email and text," he says.
"You need some of it for work and the rest is distracting you from doing your work. If you post a photo on Instagram you don't need to watch the people saying, 'Yeah I like it' - people are constantly checking their 'likes'."
So when one evening he accidentally left his handset in the back of a taxi, he decided to go cold turkey.
The first six months were difficult.
"I felt withdrawal symptoms at first, kind of the way I felt when I quit smoking," he said.
But he says he now sleeps better, talks to more people and takes more interest in his surroundings as a smartphone-free individual - and jokes that he feels "superior" to his smartphone-absorbed friends.
"I see myself as a sober alcoholic - I can't handle it," he says.
"A lot of my friends said, 'Just use [the phone] less', but that's like walking around with a pack of cigarettes in your pocket and saying just don't smoke."
Dr Andrew Przybylski, an experimental psychologist and research fellow at Oxford University's Internet Institute, thinks the comparison is a little strong.
"There is no scientific evidence that smartphones are addictive in the clinical sense," he told the BBC.
"But because they put so many possibilities at our fingertips they are very attractive."
Dr Przybylski added that there "isn't any good research" as yet to suggest that heavy use of social media causes changes in the brain.
"If anything, brain...

Summary: A recent report by UK regulator Ofcom claimed that 59% of Brits consider themselves to be "hooked" on their handsets - but not everybody is a slave to their smartphone, reports Zoe Kleinman.
###
Article: Sales volumes increased by 1.7% in November from the month before, the Office for National Statistics said.
Compared with the same month last year, sales were up by 5%.
However, Keith Richardson from Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking said it was "too early" to say whether Black Friday was really a success for retailers.
"Retailers were better prepared this year and adapted the US-style Black Friday to better reflect British culture. Some chose not to take part while many others spread the discounts over several days to better protect margins and ease the burden on their websites and IT platforms."
The ONS said the amount spent by shoppers was up 1.4% in November compared with the month before, and was also up 1.4% from the same point a year earlier.
The value of online sales increased by 4.9% in November from October, and were 12.7% higher compared with last year.
"Retailers may see some pay-back after the Black Friday promotions led shoppers to pull-forward spending that would otherwise have taken place in December, but the underlying sales trend looks set to remain strong as we head into 2016," said Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit.
He added that spending was not just being driven by discounts. "Households are benefitting from improved job security, low inflation and falling energy prices, the latter helping free-up more income to boost retail sales."

Summary:


The Khmer Rouge's government has been trying to get the Khmer Rouge to accept the government's request for permission to fly the aircraft.
The Khmer Rouge has been trying to get the Khmer Rouge to accept the government's request for permission to fly the aircraft.
The Khmer Rouge has been trying to

The owners of Dunsfold Park aerodrome, which is home to the BBC's Top Gear, have lost their latest fight for unrestricted flying.

Article: The show at the Cartwright Hall gallery will focus on his early life and work.
Hockney was born in Bradford in 1937. As a teenager, he would use a pram loaded with paints and brushes as a mobile art studio on the city streets.
He went on to find fame at the Royal College of Art in London in the 1960s.
A major show of Hockney's landscapes at the Royal Academy earlier this year, titled A Bigger Picture, attracted more than 600,000 people.
Cartwright Hall is asking Bradford residents to take items including paintings, drawings, photographs and Christmas cards to a drop-in day on Wednesday 26 September between 11:00 and 15:00 BST, or to contact curators directly.
The gallery said it hoped the exhibition, which will run from December until next April, would be "a truly, uniquely Bradford exhibition".
Hockney studied at Bradford College of Art in the mid-1950s.
Cartwright Hall's collection includes Hockney's Bolton Junction, Eccleshill, which was painted while he was at art college and which was featured in the Royal Academy show.
Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, Bradford Council's executive member for culture, said: "David Hockney is one of Bradford's most famous sons.
"It's therefore fitting that this exhibition will have a local perspective with valuable contributions from the district's residents."

Summary: A gallery in David Hockney's home town of Bradford is asking people who met him at the start of his career to dig out works of art or pieces of memorabilia for a new exhibition.
###
Article: Scientists say the contaminants take a circuitous route travelling via the Arctic Ocean and down past Greenland.
Researchers believe the radioactivity levels are extremely low and present no danger.
However, scientists can use the iodine to accurately map the currents that transport greenhouse gases.
One scientific consequence that arose from the testing of nuclear bombs in the atmosphere in the 1950s was that their radioactive fallout provided a powerful global tracer of water circulation and deep-ocean ventilation.
Other sources of radioactive material for scientists to track water movements have been the nuclear reprocessing plants at Sellafield in the UK and at La Hague in France.
Contaminants have been legally released from these sites for more than 50 years. One in particular, Iodine-129 (129I), has been very useful for scientists tracing the ocean currents that help pull down greenhouse gases into the waters.
"What we have found is that by tracing radioactive iodine released into the seas off the UK and France, we have been able to confirm how the deep ocean currents flow in the North Atlantic," said lead researcher Dr John Smith from the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, in Canada.
"This is the first study to show precise and continuous tracking of Atlantic water flowing northward into the Arctic Ocean off Norway, circulating around the arctic basins and returning to the Nordic seas in what we call the 'Arctic loop', and then flowing southward down the continental slope of North America to Bermuda at depths below 3000 metres."
Scientists have used other molecules as tracers, specifically chlorofluorocarbons that were once used in refrigeration. But 129I, which has a half-life of 15.7 millions years, retains the initial imprint of its input history over a long period of time.
Another advantage for researchers is that 129I is relatively easy to detect at extremely low levels.
"In many ways this is a bit like the old 'stick in a stream' game we used to play as kids," said Dr Smith.
"What people call...

Summary: Radioactive iodine from nuclear reprocessing plants in the UK and France has been detected deep in the waters near Bermuda.
###
Article: The brutal regime, in power from 1975-1979, claimed the lives of up to two million people.
Under the Marxist leader Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge tried to take Cambodia back to the Middle Ages, forcing millions of people from the cities to work on communal farms in the countryside.
But this dramatic attempt at social engineering had a terrible cost.
Whole families died from execution, starvation, disease and overwork.
The Khmer Rouge had its origins in the 1960s, as the armed wing of the Communist Party of Kampuchea - the name the Communists used for Cambodia.
Based in remote jungle and mountain areas in the north-east of the country, the group initially made little headway.
But after a right-wing military coup toppled head of state Prince Norodom Sihanouk in 1970, the Khmer Rouge entered into a political coalition with him and began to attract increasing support.
In a civil war that continued for nearly five years, it gradually increased its control in the countryside.
Khmer Rouge forces finally took over the capital, Phnom Penh, and therefore the nation as a whole in 1975.
During his time in the remote north-east, Pol Pot had been influenced by the surrounding hill tribes, who were self-sufficient in their communal living, had no use for money and were "untainted" by Buddhism.
When he came to power, he and his henchmen quickly set about transforming Cambodia - now re-named Kampuchea - into what they hoped would be an agrarian utopia.
Declaring that the nation would start again at "Year Zero", Pol Pot isolated his people from the rest of the world and set about emptying the cities, abolishing money, private property and religion, and setting up rural collectives.
Anyone thought to be an intellectual of any sort was killed. Often people were condemned for wearing glasses or knowing a foreign language.
Hundreds of thousands of the educated middle-classes were tortured and executed in special centres.
The most notorious of these centres was the S-21 jail in Phnom Penh, Tuol Sleng, where as many as 17,000 men, women...

Summary: In the four years that the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia, it was responsible for one of the worst mass killings of the 20th Century.
###
Article: The aerodrome's owners had claimed that "permanent unrestricted planning permission" was granted in 1951.
However, this was rejected by Waverley Borough Council in July 2011 and the planning inspector in April 2012.
A judge at the High Court said the 1951 permission did not grant permission for unrestricted flying.
Lord Justice Sullivan said the permission for "flight testing" did not amount to consent for unrestricted flying of aircraft.
He said the certificate sought by the owners was pursued on the alleged basis that there was no material difference, in land use terms, between unrestricted numbers of passenger or cargo flights, and flight testing.
He said: "The use of land as a bus station is not the same thing as use of land for the testing of buses."
He added: "There can be no doubt that, properly construed, the 1951 planning permission does not permit the airfield to be used for unrestricted aviation activities."
Dunsfold Park was constructed during World War Two by the Canadian Army. It is now used by about 100 commercial operators and most famously as the venue for the filming of Top Gear.
The owners have the right to appeal the latest decision to the Supreme Court.

Summary:


The government has lost its appeal over Rangers' use of Employee Benefit Trusts (EBTs) - the so-called "Big Tax Case".

The former leader of the Alliance party Lord Alderdice has criticised plans contained in the "Fresh Start" deal.

Article: The court had said in 2013 that whole-life sentences breached human rights because it was not clear if there was the chance of a review of such cases.
Judges have now said this is not the case with murderer Arthur Hutchinson, who challenged his whole-life sentence.
The UK was considered to be in line with human rights laws, they added.
The European court had previously said there had to be the possibility of a review at some stage and that current laws allowing for release in exceptional circumstances were unclear.
The Court of Appeal in the UK then said in 2014 that the law in England and Wales "is clear as to 'possible exceptional release of whole-life prisoners'".
It said the justice secretary had the power to release a prisoner on licence if they were satisfied exceptional circumstances existed that justified it on compassionate grounds.
The Strasbourg-based court ruled that in Hutchinson's case there had been no violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which relates to inhuman and degrading treatment.
The judges said in a written ruling: "In the circumstances of this case where, following the Grand Chamber's judgment in which it expressed doubts about the clarity of domestic law, the national court has specifically addressed those doubts and set out an unequivocal statement of the legal position, the court must accept the national court's interpretation of domestic law."
The ruling is perhaps more significant politically than it is legally.
In 2013, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights ruled that whole-life sentences passed on the most heinous murderers were incompatible with human rights and amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment. The reason was the lack of a proper review and so the lack of hope, however remote, of eventual release.
That caused political ructions. It was cited by the Conservatives in proposals published last year to scrap the Human Rights Act in favour of a British Bill of Rights and to ensure that Parliament was not bound by Strasbourg...

Summary: British courts do have the right to impose whole-life tariffs on prisoners who are jailed for life, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled.
###
Article: The problem should not occur, as fracking typically involves drilling more than a mile underground - far deeper than the water-bearing rocks (aquifers) from which we get our water supplies.
But another possibility of contamination occurs where the drill hole goes through the water-bearing rock.
If the borehole is not properly cased to stop leaks, the fracking water can escape into the aquifer.
This happened a lot in the early days of fracking in the USA.
Other problems can occur if the frackers drill horizontally too close to water-bearing rocks.
This is now considered bad practice, although it also happened in the USA, where small risk-taking companies pioneered fracking techniques before big operators took over.
Some areas have complained about high levels of the carcinogen benzene in underground water supplies as a result. In the UK, the Environment Agency says only chemicals non-toxic at small concentrations may be used.
The other possibility of pollution is when the water, which is mixed with chemicals and sand for the fracking process, comes back to the surface. It can be contaminated with heavy metals and radioactivity.
This wastewater needs to be contained in tanks before being disposed of or - preferably - cleaned up to re-use for more fracking.
The UK government has decided that with proper regulations, contamination of water from shale gas production should be avoided - and permission granted to start fracking.
We asked readers to send questions as the government gave the go-ahead to fracking in Lancashire.
The most popular questions were in relation to water, and Tim Glover asked: "Does fracking affect the water supply?"
Fracking has long been a controversial issue.
In 2011, all fracking was suspended in the UK after it was believed to have caused earthquakes near Blackpool.
The ban was lifted in 2012, but campaigners have continued to voice their opposition.
Pollyanna Steiner, from Friends of the Earth, said: "Fracking goes against everything we need to do to tackle climate change.
"The...

Summary: Fracking can contaminate water supplies if it is not done properly, because the fracking fluid injected into rock to enable gas to be released often contains chemicals.
###
Article: Upper tier tribunal judge Lord Doherty dismissed the appeal against a first-tier tax tribunal decision but referred several issues back to the panel.
The tax authority had argued that payments made to players and other employees should be taxable.
The Murray Group, which formerly owned Rangers, argued they were loans.
The first-tier tribunal (FTT) had issued a 2-1 majority verdict in November 2012 which favoured, in principle, the Murray Group and ordered that HMRC's Â£46.2m demands, about three-quarters of which referred to the liquidated club, be "reduced substantially".
The upper-tier appeal has largely upheld that verdict but some payments will be re-examined by the original tribunal, including termination and "guaranteed bonus" payments.
However, the Murray Group appeared to secure an additional victory relating to payments made to several people including former Ibrox chairman Sir David Murray, which it argued were not special cases.
The judgement, which has no impact on the current Rangers owners, reads: "The appeal is dismissed except in so far as it relates to the termination payments.
"I shall remit the case to the FTT with a direction to allow the taxpayers' appeals against the assessments relating to the payments to the sub-trusts of Sir David Murray, his sons, Mr McClelland and Mr MacMillan; to proceed as accords in relation to the termination payments, the payments in respect of guaranteed bonuses, and any related questions of grossing up.
"Standing my findings and my disposal, the remit should be to the FTT as originally constituted."
It is unclear how many termination payments were made but the FTT's decision referred to five "guaranteed bonus" payments.
In a statement, a spokesman for Murray International Holdings (MIH) expressed satisfaction with the ruling but said there were no winners.
He said: "We are pleased with the judgement which again leaves negligible tax liability and overwhelmingly supports the views collectively and consistently held by our advisers, legal counsel and MIH...

Summary: HM Revenue and Customs has lost its appeal over Rangers' use of Employee Benefit Trusts (EBTs) - the so-called "Big Tax Case".
###
Article: Lord Alderdice said proposals for a new international body to monitor paramilitary activity would have "much less power" than the panel he sat on.
He was a member of the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) which operated from 2004 to 2011.
The Liberal Democrat peer said the new body would only be able to produce a few proposals for the Executive.
"Which will then fall into disagreement about how they should be implemented," he said.
Lord Alderdice spoke on Tuesday's debate on the Northern Ireland Welfare Reform Bill in the House of Lords.
The former Church of Ireland primate Archbishop Robin Eames also used the debate to express his disappointment that the "Fresh Start" deal did not include any agreement on the legacy of the troubles.
Lord Eames, who was co-chair of a consultative group on the past, told peers he was well aware of the "desperate plight" of troubles' victims.
He urged the government to publish the legacy papers prepared during the inter-party negotiations, arguing that the victims "deserve nothing less".
Lord Eames expressed the hope that legacy issues might yet be tackled, adding that "perhaps the situation is not as bleak as it seems".
The government spokesman, Lord Dunlop, said the establishment of a new monitoring body to assess the impact of paramilitary activity on local communities is "a crucial part" of the "Fresh Start" deal.
Lord Dunlop said the government regretted the fact that an agreement on legacy issues could not be reached, and remained committed to continuing to work to build a consensus.

Summary:


The report says that the report is a "new report" that will be published in the next few months.
The report says that the report is a "new report" that will be published in the next few months.
The report says that the report is a "new report" that will be published in the

New rules are urgently needed to protect the open seas, scientists have warned.

Article: They will include Aberfeldy-based furniture maker Angus Ross, Edinburgh designer Jennifer Gray and Fife-based creative studio Tom Pigeon.
Others taking part will be Linlithgow's Method Studio, Glasgow's Scotland Re:Designed and Scottish silversmiths.
National body, Craft Scotland, has arranged a showcase event for Ross and Gray.
Ross' products included the Unstable Stool, which is made from a single length of wood which is steamed and then bent into shape. The design was shortlisted for The Wood Awards in 2009.
Gray's jewellery has included a bracelet made to mark 20 years since the creation of Dolly the Sheep, a cloned sheep created at the Roslin Institute just outside Edinburgh.

Summary: Scottish makers are to exhibit their work at London Craft Week, which opens on Wednesday.
###
Article: Peers amended the legislation paving the way for the in-out poll, due before 2018, to lower the voting age.
But the move was overturned in a Commons vote, by 303 votes to 253 - a government majority of 50.
The government said it would be wrong to alter the "tried and tested" general election franchise for a single poll.
But Labour, the SNP and Lib Dems all favour allowing 16 and 17-year-olds - who were allowed to take part in last year's referendum on Scottish independence - to vote on whether to remain in the EU.
Labour's shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, said the government's decision to block the move was "wrong-headed and unfair".
Speaker John Bercow certified that the changes proposed by the House of Lords were covered by "financial privilege" rules, because the government had estimated that it would cost about Â£6m to implement.
These rules can be used by the House of Commons "as grounds for overruling any House of Lords proposal that has cost implications".
But BBC assistant political editor Norman Smith said Labour peers still hoped to force the government to lower the voting age, and would table a fresh motion that did not fall foul of the rules, on Monday.
No date has been set for the referendum, but David Cameron has promised to hold it by the end of 2017.

Summary: MPs have rejected an attempt by the House of Lords to give 16 and 17-year-olds a vote in the planned referendum on Britain's EU membership.
###
Article: We'd been waiting for that. What we did not expect was for him to shoot off across the next 200 metres like a sprinter. We ran behind him, stumbling on the uneven surface.
Mr Gupta darted towards an unmanned railway crossing and waving his red flag, quickly shut and locked the gate there. Then he turned towards the train and waved the green flag.
The train moved forward, passed the locked gate - and stopped again. Mr Gupta opened the gate and raced back to the driver's cabin, with us closely behind. He could do this up to 16 times over a distance of 68km (42 miles), on a one-way journey.
"It's what I do. I'm the mobile gatekeeper," he says.
Some 11,500 of the more than 30,000 railway crossings in India are unmanned. Nearly 40% of train-related accidents and two-thirds of deaths on railway tracks - usually happens when people are crossing them - take place at these unmanned crossings.
The railways' response has been to shut down as many unmanned crossings as it can rather than staff them with gatekeepers. Or to create 'mobile gatekeepers' like Mr Gupta to do the work of many.
We are travelling on the crowded Dhamtari passenger train in the central state of Chhattisgarh.
The slow narrow gauge train is better known as the "labour train" for it ferries hundreds of migrant workers from nearby villages to the state capital, Raipur, in search of work.
It's a nine-station journey from Dhamtari to Telibandha, the last narrow gauge stop in Raipur. Only two or three of some 19 railway gates on the route are manned.
"My job is to open and shut the gates. I enjoy my work," says Mr Gupta, who earns less than 20,000 rupees ($331; Â£205) a month.
"Earlier there used to be permanent gatekeepers for these crossings, but now I have been appointed as the mobile gatekeeper. I used to lay and maintain railway tracks, but I was promoted to this position two years ago."
In the early stations on the route, a "mobile gatekeeper" can board one of the rear coaches after seeing the train through at one of the railway gates.
With the...

Summary: When Kanhaiyalal Gupta jumped off from the engine driver's cabin with a pair of red and green flags in his hands, we got off the slowing train too.
###
Article: A report to a UN ocean conference in New York points out that more than 60% of the ocean has no rules because it’s outside national jurisdiction.
It says the open ocean is at risk from climate change, over-fishing, deep sea mining, farm pollution and plastics.
The authors say one area – the Bay of Bengal - is at a tipping point which could impact on global fish stocks.
The report was commissioned to inform delegates preparing a UN resolution on governance of the open ocean.
Representatives in New York are preparing a text that could cover everything from establishing marine protected areas to distributing the benefits of valuable biotech products generated from the seas.
One of the report’s authors, Prof Alex Rogers from Oxford University, told BBC News: “This is very, very important. A lot of states are looking towards developing industrial activities in the ocean – fishing, deep-sea mining, renewable energy… even aquaculture offshore.
“It’s really vital that we come to some international agreement on how to protect or manage biodiversity on high seas in the face of all these pressures.”
The UN is focusing discussion on three areas:
Together they are categorised under a new UN acronym – BBNJ. That’s Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction.
Prof Rogers’ report is a review of new science over the past five years. He says he realises how little is known about some essential ocean processes, and mentions the Bay of Bengal issue as a source of great concern.
The issue there is nitrogen, which performs an positive role in fertilising algae at the bottom of the food chain, but can also have negative effects if there’s too much of it in the water.
At the moment, nitrogen fertilisers in the Bay of Bengal are running off farmland and over-fertilising algae. This in turn encourages bacteria, which capture oxygen. Slowly marine life in the area disappears.
But the Bay of Bengal is now on the verge of going one destructive stage more.
The report says if oxygen levels decrease further as a result of run-off or...

Summary:


The inquest into the death of Jean-Claude Monet, a former British Army officer, was held on the same day as the inquest.
The inquest was held on the same day as the inquest.
The inquest was held on the same day as the inquest.
The inquest was held on the same day

A man charged with murdering his wife at a care home has died before his court case could be heard.

Article: He was found guilty of bribery, abuse of power and "intentionally disclosing national secrets", China's official Xinhua news agency reports.
Until his retirement in 2012, Zhou was one of China's most powerful men.
He was put under investigation one year later as part of President Xi Jinping's major anti-corruption campaign.
State TV showed a clip of Zhou, 72, pleading guilty at a closed-door trial in the northern city of Tianjin. When responding to the judge, he said he would not launch an appeal.
"I've realised the harm I've caused to the party and the people. I plead guilty and I regret my crimes," he said.
BBC China editor Carrie Gracie: Power politics exposed by fall of security boss
How China is reacting
The verdict caught many people off guard.
It was expected that Zhou Yongkang's trial would be played out for the Chinese public; his failings strung out for every citizen to see.
In similar high-profile cases, like that of Zhou's protege, Bo Xilai, the foreign and Chinese media were given 48 hours' notice that Bo's trial would begin. Reporters camped outside the courthouse for days, breathlessly waiting for updates.
In March, the head of China's Supreme People's Court had promised that Zhou Yongkang's trial would be "open in accordance with the law". The trial was set to take place in the eastern port city of Tianjin. It seemed Zhou was set to follow Bo's pattern. Like other senior officials convicted of serious crimes, it was expected he would receive a suspended death sentence.
Months passed without any word. Some guessed that Zhou Yongkang was not co-operating with prosecutors. Others believed that his crimes were too much of an embarrassment for the government.
After all, Zhou Yongkang had held a seat at the very top of the Chinese government pyramid. If he was thoroughly corrupt, some in China might ask whether others at the top were rotten too.
In the end, the decision to keep Zhou Yongkang's trial secret matches the case surrounding him, and Zhou's own public persona: inaccessible and...

Summary: China's ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang has been jailed for life - the most senior politician to face corruption charges under Communist rule.
###
Article: The UK doctors told the Lancet Oncology there was now enough proof the hard-and-fast treatment worked just as well and did not cause more side-effects.
For a patient, the new regime would mean 17 fewer trips to hospital.
Nationally, it would free more than 150,000 visits, saving the NHS tens of millions of pounds each year.
Prostate cancer makes up more than a quarter of the workload of UK radiotherapy departments, and many cancer centres are already making savings by following the new regime
Prof David Dearnaley and his team, from the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden Hospital, say others should do the same.
They estimate about 10,000 men a year could benefit from the new treatment regime.
The treatment is given over four weeks instead of seven and a half, and uses higher doses of radiation to zap the prostate gland and kill the cancer.
Studies in thousands of men suggest giving 20 high doses for a month is as effective as giving 37 standard doses over two months.
Prof Dearnaley said: "There are no losers with this. Everybody wins - the NHS and patients."
The work was part-funded by the Department of Health and Cancer Research UK.
Prof Arnie Purushotham, of Cancer Research UK, said: "It is clear that this is safe and effective, so it is now up to the NHS to ensure all men who are suitable are offered this treatment immediately."

Summary: The NHS could save money and patients' time by giving fewer but stronger doses of radiotherapy treatment for prostate cancer, say experts.
###
Article: Toby Perkins, who is leading Liz Kendall's leadership campaign, said it suggested a "paucity of intellectual argument" on behalf of Ms Goodman.
Labour needed a serious debate about its future direction, he said.
Ms Cooper, Ms Kendall, Jeremy Corbyn and Andy Burnham are all vying to become Ed Miliband's successor.
The winner of the contest will be announced on 12 September, ahead of the party's autumn conference.
In an article for Huffington Post, Ms Goodman, shadow media minister and Bishop Auckland MP, set out why she would be supporting Yvette Cooper's candidacy.
She said that being a parent to two children was "much more important" than her political career.
"That's why I'm backing Yvette Cooper to be the next Leader of the Labour Party. As a working mum, she understands the pressures on modern family life," she wrote.
Ms Goodman added: "We need a leader who knows what challenges ordinary people face day to day, and who is committed to helping them."
Asked about her comments Mr Perkins told BBC2's Daily Politics programme he was "disappointed" by the article.
"The idea that you say 'because one of the candidates is a mother they are the one that you should back' suggests a paucity of intellectual argument that the Labour Party really should have moved beyond," he said.
Mr Perkins said Labour suffered its worst electoral performance since 1983 at the general election.
The idea that the party could "go back to the electorate with the same programme but get a different outcome is intellectually bankrupt".

Summary: Helen Goodman's decision to back Yvette Cooper as the next Labour leader because she is a "working mum" has been criticised by a rival's campaign chief.
###
Article: Brendon Constant, 87, was accused of smothering his 86-year-old wife Jean with a plastic bag at Poppyfields care home in Eynesbury, near St Neots.
He died in hospital after suffering "catastrophic" head injuries in a fall at home, Cambridge Crown Court heard.
Mr Constant, of Richmond Road, Wisbech, did not enter a plea to the murder charge before his death.
Cambridge Crown Court heard he had attempted to kill himself at the same time as his wife was killed last August but survived and faced court proceedings.
His barrister, Sally Hobson, said he suffered a fall at home on April 27 after celebrating his grandson's birthday and that there was "no suggestion he took his own life".
She said: "When he retired to bed, he spoke briefly to his great-granddaughter, then went upstairs and fell and suffered catastrophic head injuries."
Mr Constant was taken to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge and his family agreed to switch off his life support machine the following day.
"He had hoped to end his life together with his wife in August last year in circumstances they hoped would cause the least distress and discomfort," Mrs Hobson said.
Judge David Farrell voiced concerns over the fact Mr Constant had been granted bail and fell at home.
He said: "Everyone thought he was in a safe environment so I'm concerned all proper care was given to him."
A post-mortem examination concluded that Mrs Constant died of asphyxia in association with heart disease.
Her body was discovered by police who were called to Poppyfields care home in Chapman Way, Eynesbury, near St Neots, on August 22.

Summary:


The Bulls have been in the balance since the full extent of their financial worries emerged in the weeks since their dramatic final-day escape sent Chester down instead.
Chester have been reinstated as a Conference Premier club and Hayes & Yeading will stay in Conference South.
"Hereford United can have no complaints.

Hereford United have been expelled from the Football Conference following the club's failure to pay their bills.

Article: The royal couple were among the guests invited to attend the global financial firm ICAP's 23rd annual charity day.
Traders in London taught them how to close deals at the Central European interest rates desk.
ICAP gives away one day's revenue and commissions every year, which enables them to fund philanthropic projects and research around the world.
The event raises millions each year for charities that the duke and duchess are patrons of such as SkillForce, Place2Be and Sports Aid.
Since ICAP's fundraising day was started in 1993, nearly Â£120m has been raised for charity.
The duchess danced in celebration after the couple closed deals worth millions of euros over the phone.
The duke later joked about the "dodgy" outfits worn by some of the staff, which ranged from gangsters and molls to belly dancers and comic book characters such as Batman and Iron Man.
He was guided through the trade by broker Dan Lebeau, who was wearing three-inch heels.
Mr Lebeau said: "He was saying to me, basically 'where did you get them from?'
"It was very difficult to find size 10 high heels in a normal shop."
Also at the event were the prime minister's wife, Samantha Cameron, actor Jeremy Irons and broadcaster Jeremy Paxman.

Summary: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have joined City brokers in fancy dress on the trading floor at a charity event.
###
Article: The government forecast an iron ore price of $46.70 a tonne by 2018, almost half the current level of $80.
The current price is supported by resurgent demand from China.
But the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science said that demand was unlikely to continue over the coming years.
The department also lowered its forecast for iron ore exports by 2% to 832.2 million tonnes for the fiscal year 2016-17.
Australia is the world's biggest supplier of iron ore and shares in the country's main mining companies fell after the report was released.
Hardest hit was Fortescue Metals which fell more than 3% in early trade, while commodity giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto also saw their shares prices drop.
In its forecast early last year, the department had predicted an iron ore price of $44.10 per tonne, but an increase in Chinese demand spurred the price to above $80.

Summary: Shares in Australian mining companies have fallen after the government forecasted a dramatic decline in iron ore prices.
###
Article: An independent panel of government advisers says health professionals should take every opportunity to discuss diet, exercise, smoking and drinking habits.
Ministers have backed the proposal from the NHS Future Forum to "make every contact count".
But the Royal College of GPs says the move could drive some patients away.
The recommendation is part of a series of papers from the panel of independent experts. Their first report last year outlined changes to the Health and Social Care Bill.
They are now setting out their conclusions on four other areas - public health, information, improving links between services and education and training.
The paper on public health states that everyone has a responsibility for their own health, but it also contends that the NHS is responsible for helping people to improve their health and well-being.
It goes on to argue that healthcare professionals should use every contact to do this, whatever their area of expertise or the initial purpose of the discussion.
The report points out that each day in England GPs and practice nurses see over 800,000 people, dentists see over 250,000 NHS patients, and 1.6 million people visit a pharmacy.
"There are millions of opportunities every day for the NHS to help to improve people's health and wellbeing and reduce health inequalities, but to take this opportunity it needs a different view of how to use its contacts with the public."
In particular, the report emphasises the importance of the four main lifestyle risk factors - diet, physical activity, alcohol and tobacco.
For example, it suggests that collecting medication from a pharmacy is a chance to offer help on cutting down on alcohol, or that a routine dental check-up could be used to discuss smoking.
The paper says to emphasise the importance of this responsibility, the government should seek to include it in the NHS Constitution.
The coalition government has accepted the forum's recommendations.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: "The NHS Future Forum has again provided invaluable...

Summary: NHS staff in England must adapt their roles to ensure they promote good health under plans being published.
###
Article: The Bulls' fate has been in the balance since the full extent of their financial worries emerged in the weeks since their dramatic final-day escape sent Chester down instead.
Chester have been reinstated as a Conference Premier club and Hayes & Yeading will stay in Conference South.
"Hereford United can have no complaints. The Conference bent over backwards to help them.
"I described the news of the board's offer of an extension on Friday evening as not so much 'last chance saloon', but rather 'last orders in last chance saloon' and United have seemingly chosen not to offer the league the assurances they were seeking.
"It is a desperately sad day for all Hereford supporters, but the Bulls have nobody to blame but themselves.
"You have to feel very sorry for those players who gave their all at Aldershot on the last day of the season to keep Hereford in the Conference Premier. Sadly, those efforts now count for nothing."
The Conference had originally offered a payment deadline of Thursday, 5 June.
The club's debt to their football creditors, including former boss Martin Foyle, members of the current squad, other club staff and clubs from whom the Bulls loaned players during the 2013-14 season, added up to £148,000.
That deadline was extended three times, to Friday, 6 June, then again to Saturday, 7 June and for a third time until Thursday, 12 June.
But it became clear on Tuesday that the Bulls, taken over last week by London businessman Tommy Agombar, would not make that deadline - and the Conference has now acted.
The last team to be expelled from the Conference was Chester City in February 2010.
They reformed as Chester FC two months later - and it is now they who have taken the Bulls' place, following a dramatic final day of the season when, almost simultaneously, a late Hereford winning goal at Aldershot and a Salisbury equaliser at Chester kept the Bulls up.
By way of an added twist, Chester announced on Tuesday that Kingsley James, who was in Hereford's team that day, has moved to Bumpers Lane.
26 April -...

Summary:


The second node in the network is a telecommunications satellite that was launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
It will use a laser to gather pictures of the planet taken by other spacecraft and then relay them to the ground.
One benefit will be to put information on natural disasters, such as flooding and earthquakes, into

Europe has begun to roll out a data superhighway in orbit above the Earth.

Article: In a speech read on his behalf at the ceremony in Sweden, he said he thought his odds of winning were as likely as him "standing on the moon".
The songwriter told those at the event in Sweden he was there "in spirit" and thanked the Academy for seeing his songs as works of literature.
Patti Smith performed his song A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall at the ceremony.
But the singer, who is a friend of Dylan's, had to apologise during her rendition after nerves got the better of her and she forgot the lyrics.
"Sorry, can we stop that section," she said as the audience began to applaud her. "I apologise, I'm so nervous."
In the speech, read out by the US ambassador in Sweden, Azita Raji, Dylan said he had joined the "rare company" of Nobel-winning writers.
He said from an early age he had read and absorbed the works of past winners and giants of literature such as Kipling, Shaw, Thomas Mann, Pearl Buck, and Ernest Hemingway.
But he said it was "truly beyond words" that he was joining those names on the winners list.
"If someone had ever told me that I had the slightest chance of winning the Nobel prize, I would have to think that I'd have about the same odds as standing on the moon," he wrote.
He said his win was surprising because he was a songwriter, rather than a writer of books and poems "taught in the schoolroom, housed in libraries across the world."
"Not once have I ever had the time to ask myself, 'Are my songs literature?'" he told attendees at the dinner, before thanking the prize-givers for "providing such a wonderful answer".
The folk singer explained that Shakespeare, the "great literary figure", probably thought of himself a dramatist.
"The thought that he was writing literature couldn't have entered his head," he said. "His words were written for the stage. Meant to be spoken not read."
Few predicted that Dylan would be awarded the prize when the announcement was made in October.
The 75-year-old singer waited two weeks to acknowledge the win and later said he would not travel to Sweden due to...

Summary: Bob Dylan said it was "truly beyond words" to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.
###
Article: Mark Barnes said the attack on some versions of the Echo let him do almost anything he wanted to it.
Mr Barnes managed to enter the device's software innards via connections found on its base.
He said taking over the device was "trivial" once an attacker had access to an Echo.
Amazon's Echo uses artificial intelligence (AI) to respond to voice commands from users to carry out many different functions, including answering queries, playing songs and ordering goods from a retailer.
The hack started by peeling off the rubber base of the Echo to expose a grid of electrical contacts, wrote the researcher from MWR Info Security in a blog.
Connecting to one of the contacts let Mr Barnes watch the Echo's boot-up procedure and work out how it was configured. Armed with this knowledge Mr Barnes wrote software that, once loaded on a small memory card and connected to one contact pad, gave him control over the device.
Using this he examined how it handled audio and then created attack code which forwarded everything it heard to a remote server.
That deep access meant he had complete control over the code the device ran and what it did with customer data, he said.
Amazon did not comment directly on Mr Barnes' findings but said in a statement: "Customer trust is very important to us.
"To help ensure the latest safeguards are in place, as a general rule, we recommend customers purchase Amazon devices from Amazon or a trusted retailer and that they keep their software up-to-date."
The security researcher acknowledged that the requirement to get physical access to the device to carry out the attack was a "major limitation".
However, he added, it was possible that Echo owners would take their devices with them on holidays or business trips - situations that could expose them to attack. Second-hand devices may also be compromised in some way.
The attack was carried out on the versions of the Echo that were released in 2015 and 2016. More recent versions of the Echo are not susceptible to the same attack.
Mr Barnes recommended...

Summary: Amazon's Echo smart speaker can be hacked to send the audio stream of everything it hears to an attacker, says a researcher.
###
Article: Christopher Colebrook, 44, of Bowers Fold, Doncaster, pleaded guilty to repeatedly raping and assaulting a 16-year-old girl and 19-year-old man.
Police said they believed he may have attacked others and urged possible victims to come forward.
Colebook was jailed at Sheffield Crown Court.
Det Con Nichole Russell said: "He preyed on vulnerable teenagers, subjecting them to horrendous sexual offending after plying them with alcohol.
"This investigation revealed Colebrook's true predatory nature and we believe that there could be other victims of this man out there who are yet to come forward."
Colebrook pleaded guilty to four counts of rape, two counts of sexual assault and one count of assaulting a police officer.

Summary: A man who plied two teenagers with alcohol before subjecting them to "horrendous" sexual abuse has been jailed for 21 years.
###
Article: The first node in the network is a telecommunications satellite that was launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
It will use a laser to gather pictures of the planet taken by other spacecraft and then relay them to the ground.
One benefit will be to put information on natural disasters, such as flooding and earthquakes, into the hands of emergency responders far faster than has previously been possible.
Currently, it can take hours to get the pictures taken by Earth observation satellites down on the ground.
Part of the reason is that spacecraft can only transmit their images when they pass over a receiving dish, and they will have visibility of this antenna for just 10 minutes in most cases during every 90-minute tour around the globe.
The European Space Agency's (Esa) answer is to fire the pictures upwards instead, via laser, to another satellite much higher in the sky that has a constant view of the ground station.
The agency recently put up two Earth observers that are equipped with optical transmission equipment. These will now be able to offload their data through the new relay satellite, which is to be positioned 36,000km above the equator at 9 degrees East.
Testing by Esa's industrial partner, Airbus Defence and Space, shows it should be possible for the system to put pictures on the desks of the people who need them within 20 minutes of those images being acquired.
For some applications - such as the monitoring of pollution incidents, or illegal fishing or ocean piracy - the time saved could be critical to achieving an effective response.
"Some important shipping routes go through the North Pole region, where thick ice flows can cause damage to vessels and even threaten human life," explained Magali Vaissiere, Esa's director of telecoms.
"It's also an environment in constant motion which means that data that is two days old is not only unhelpful - it could even be unsafe.
"We have already demonstrated quasi real-time performance of below 20 minutes for bringing monitoring information from the coast of...

Summary:


The UK's new rules are being seen as a major test of what scientists and engineers have achieved in the sphere of AI.

A county court judge has ruled that airline Jet2.com cannot delay the payment of compensation due to passengers for delayed flights.

Article: Yorkshire Water said it was targeting seven locations across the city where there were build-ups of fat deposits.
The firm is deploying organically grown bacillus bacteria, which is commonly found in the human gut, to eat the fat, oils and grease.
The blockages are caused by waste cooking oils from homes being poured down plug holes.
As the fat cools it hardens and deposits gradually build up.
According to Yorkshire Water, in the past six months maintenance crews have attended 1,700 jobs in Hull to remove blockages in local sewers, with 350 jobs carried out in February 2012 alone.
Last year, across its entire 33,500 mile (54,000km) sewer network the firm said it had removed 2,000 tonnes of grease.
Patrick Killgallon, pollution manager at Yorkshire Water, said: "We continue to encourage customers to think before they pour things like fat down their sink, we're also looking at new and innovative approaches to tackling this age old problem to support current practices such as jetting sewers with a high pressure hose.
"The deployment of fat-busting bugs in our sewer network is an example of this, with these 'good' bacteria literally feasting on solidified fat in our sewer.
"And because these bacteria constantly multiply in the right environment, we can leave them to get on with their job in our sewers, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, without the need for regular dosing."

Summary: Fat-eating bacteria are being put into Hull's sewers to try to get rid of fat blockages.
###
Article: The bill, which raises taxes for the wealthy, came after lengthy talks between Vice-President Joe Biden and Senate Republicans.
The House is due to consider it later. Spending cuts have been delayed for two months to allow a wider agreement.
Congress missed the deadline to pass a bill, but few effects will be felt as Tuesday is a US public holiday.
Tax cuts approved during the presidency of George W Bush formally expired at midnight (05:00 GMT).
Without approval in the House, huge tax rises for virtually all working Americans will kick in automatically.
Analysts warned that if the full effects of the fiscal cliff were allowed to take hold, the resulting reduction in consumer spending could spark a new recession.
By Mark MardellNorth America editor
The compromise deal reached on Monday seeks to avoid this by extending the tax cuts for Americans earning under $400,000 (£246,000) - up from the $250,000 level Democrats had originally sought.
A huge spending cut that would see $1.2tn shorn from the federal budget over 10 years has been deferred for two months, allowing Congress and the White House to reopen negotiations.
The Senate approved the compromise bill by 89-8. "If we do nothing, the threat of a recession is very real," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said. "Passing this agreement does not mean negotiations halt, far from it."
In addition to the income tax rates and spending cuts, the package includes:
What if the US goes over cliff?
•       Rises in inheritance taxes from 35% to 40% after the first $5m for an individual and $10m for a couple
•       Rises in capital taxes - affecting some investment income - of up to 20%, but less than the 39.6% that would prevail without a deal
•       One-year extension for unemployment benefits, affecting two million people
•       Five-year extension for tax credits that help poorer and middle-class families
'Imperfect solution'
President Barack Obama welcomed the Senate vote.
"Leaders from both parties in the Senate came together to reach an agreement...

Summary: The US Senate has approved a deal to avert general tax hikes and spending cuts known as the "fiscal cliff".
###
Article: The five-game contest is being seen as a major test of what scientists and engineers have achieved in the sphere of AI.
After the match, Lee Se-dol said: "Yesterday I was surprised but today it's more than that, I am quite speechless.
"Today I feel like AlphaGo played a nearly perfect game," he said.
"If you look at how the game was played I admit it was a clear loss on my part."
Lee Se-dol is considered a champion Go player, having won numerous tournaments over a long, successful career.
In October 2015, AlphaGo beat the European Go champion, an achievement that was not expected for years.
A computer beat the world's chess champion in 1997, but Go is recognised as a more complex board game.
On Thursday, the Korea Times reported that locals had started calling AlphaGo "AI sabum" - or "master AI".
Three games remain, but Google only has to win once more to named the victor.
"Playing against a machine is very different from an actual human opponent," world champion Lee Se-dol told the BBC ahead of the first match.
"Normally, you can sense your opponent's breathing, their energy. And lots of times you make decisions which are dependent on the physical reactions of the person you're playing against.
"With a machine, you can't do that."
Go is thought to date back to ancient China, several thousand years ago.
Using black-and-white stones on a grid, players gain the upper hand by surrounding their opponents pieces with their own.
The rules are simpler than those of chess, but a player typically has a choice of 200 moves compared with about 20 in chess.
There are more possible positions in Go than atoms in the universe, according to DeepMind's team.
It can be very difficult to determine who is winning, and many of the top human players rely on instinct.
Google's AlphaGo was developed by British computer company DeepMind which was bought by Google in 2014.
The computer program first studied common patterns that are repeated in past games, Demis Hassabis, DeepMind chief executive explained to the BBC.
"After it's...

Summary: Google's AlphaGo artificial intelligence program has defeated a top Go player for a second time.
###
Article: The ruling is likely to encourage thousands of passengers with similar claims in the UK.
Jet2 argued the compensation payments should be delayed pending the outcome of a similar case in the Netherlands.
But the judge at Liverpool County Court ruled that "a line should now be drawn. Justice delayed is justice denied".
The EU has ruled that airlines must pay compensation for delayed flights, but a number of airlines have yet to pay out.
Four airlines in the UK have made applications to delay payments: Jet2, Thomas Cook, Ryanair and WizzAir.
The Jet2 case heard in Liverpool involved Kim Allen, who claimed â‚¬400 (Â£292) compensation after an almost seven-hour delay when flying from Manchester to Malaga in 2012.
"We've all been kept waiting for so long, but I'm really happy with today's decision," she said after the judge's ruling.
"Hopefully now it's time for the airlines to pay us what the law says they should."
Her solicitor, Kevin Clarke from Bott & Co, said he hoped "the airlines will now finally face up to their obligations to passengers and to settle the hundreds of thousands of legitimate claims outstanding.
"Sadly, the history of their conduct over the last decade would tell us to expect yet another legal challenge."
The issue stems from the 2004 European regulations that oblige airlines, in some cases, to pay compensation to passengers for cancellations and delays, if they are not due to extraordinary circumstances.
A further ruling by the European Court of Justice in 2009 confirmed that delayed passengers should be treated as if their flights had been cancelled, if the delay was longer than three hours, entitling them to cash compensation.
Despite the ruling, a number of airlines in the UK are still arguing that some technical problems should be classified as extraordinary circumstances, and as such, no compensation should be due.
They have also argued that paying compensation for delays of three hours or more is disproportionate and too great a burden.

Summary: