Birstall, a large village about five miles from Leeds, is in gridlock. On the approach to its centre, blockades warn of road closures ahead. The market place - often a hive of retail activity - is as packed as it would be on any other Friday, except today it is lined with the world's press. "We want Birstall to be famous, but not for this," says resident Ian Blaimers, 69. He and lifelong friend Brian Doyle, 72, are standing across the road from where the town's MP, Jo Cox, was shot and stabbed just 24 hours ago. "I had planned to go see her at 1pm," Mr Blaimers says. "At 12.30 I changed my mind. I thought, 'I'll see her another time'." He stares across the street, where police officers are carrying out a fingertip search outside the library. "If I hadn't changed my mind, I would've been in the middle of it." Blue police tape is wrapped in great loops around lampposts surrounding the square. Cameramen jostle for what limited space there is left to set up their tripods. "Depressed, is the word," says Mr Doyle. "We've lost someone special." Journalists outnumber the residents on Birstall's streets. Those who have come out are wary of the intrusion. "You're the third reporter to come up to me in the last five minutes," one lady says. She looks close to tears. "You expect this in big cities but not here. It's just a quiet, little place. "It's going to take a long time to recover from," she says before heading back inside the shop where she works. "It's not just shock it happened, it's shock it happened here," says Sarah Lyle, 44. She and her friend have just dropped their children off at nursery. They are just one of the many clusters of people gathering at the edges of the town to reflect on what's happened. "This is a small community, people think of this place as a village, and Jo was such a big figure in that." She shakes her head. "It's just so surreal." "The community is scared," adds Jessica Clarkson, 27. "I didn't want to send my kids to school today because it's on the estate where [the alleged attacker] lives." Her friend, Jodie Britton, 29, rocks her child's pushchair and nods at the media scrum. "We only voted Jo in a year ago, I think she was one of five people we could choose from - that's how much the community thought of her," she says. The baby drops a milk bottle on the floor and, as she leans to pick it up, she adds: "I really don't think people will get over it." Another resident, who did not want to be named, was possibly more shocked than anyone to hear how the mother-of-two was shot and stabbed on Thursday. He knows the suspect. "When his image came up on the screen me and my wife said, 'not in a million years'. Of all the people in Birstall that I know, he would've been at the bottom of the list." The 66-year-old has lived in the town his whole life and, for many years, across the road from suspect Tommy Mair. He describes him as shy, a loner, a "gentle, kind chap", a well-read man with whom he had talked politics and someone who never hinted at extremist views. A steady stream of people are walking towards the town centre clutching bouquets of flowers ready to be laid just yards from where Mrs Cox was killed. As helicopters thump overhead and police officers guard every corner, it would be easy to paint Birstall as a village shattered. But among the feelings of sadness and fear are those of resoluteness - a desire to come back stronger once the turmoil fades. Sonya Archer, 44, believes it is what Mrs Cox would have wanted most of all. "Everyone is devastated, but the positives need to come out of this, particularly because that's what she stood for. "She was a champion for communities and this will make us go from strength to strength. "We will move forward."

Question: Caring , hard - working , @placeholder to the people . The tributes continue to pour in for Jo Cox following her shocking killing . And on the streets of the area she served as a local MP , grief is palpable .


Some 30 young people targeted officers and vehicles during the seizure of drugs at a house in the city's Carnhill area, at about 18:00 BST on Sunday. The PSNI found suspected Class A and B drugs, prescription medicines and drugs' paraphernalia, as well as a number of electronic storage devices. About 200 bystanders watched the operation. Det Insp Tom McClure said the investigation was ongoing. "We are committed to tackling illegal drugs and keeping communities safe," he added. The PSNI have appealed for information.

Question: Police on a drugs raid in Londonderry have been attacked by a crowd of stone - @placeholder youths .


He was discovered at about 04:50 BST at Emerson Court in Horden, near Peterlee, and taken to the University Hospital of North Tees in Stockton. The baby, who was less than 12 hours old, was named Jack by hospital staff. He is "fit and well", Durham Police said. At a press conference, officers confirmed his mother had come forward. She has been medically examined and will be interviewed. Police are working with the county council's children's services unit. The baby was found by a pet dog who was being taken for a walk. Mary Cartwright, mayor of Peterlee, saw what happened as she was returning from Newcastle Airport. She said: "I saw the policeman with a bundle in his arms and I could see the baby's head and it was in a blanket. "He ran across the road and round to the side of the ambulance and the crew took the baby. "There was nobody around and then there was this baby and I knew something wasn't quite right," she said Initial reports said the child had been found on nearby Fourth Street.

Question: A newborn baby has been found @placeholder on the doorstep of a property in County Durham .


The UK prime minister, who had promised not to call an election before 2020, said she planned to call a snap general election on 8 June. But European Council President Donald Tusk's spokesman said the 27 other EU states would forge ahead as planned. "The UK elections do not change our EU27 plans," Mr Tusk's spokesman said. He added: "We expect to have the Brexit guidelines adopted by the European Council on 29 April and following that the Brexit negotiating directives ready on 22 May. This will allow the EU27 to start negotiations." Mr Tusk and Mrs May had a "good" conversation on the phone following the announcement, the council president tweeted. Using his personal account, Mr Tusk also tweeted: "It was Hitchcock, who directed Brexit: first an earthquake and the tension rises." An EU official on the negotiating team told the BBC that they were hopeful the outcome may even improve negotiations. "This is a domestic matter for the UK. But we have some hope that this will lead to a strong leader in London that can negotiate with us with strong backing by the electorate," the official said. "This does not change things. We are ready. Early June was always the calendar." The European Union won't have much to say on the record about Theresa May's decision to call a snap election - the UK is still a member state after all and it's not the done thing to comment on internal political manoeuvrings. But no British election campaign will ever have been watched quite so closely from Brussels. That's not because Mrs May, if she wins, will have a clear personal mandate for her vision of Brexit. The European side would always have assumed that whoever was in Number 10 had the authority to negotiate for the UK. It's more because they expect to learn a lot about Mrs May's vision for Brexit in the heat of campaigning - and also about the visions of the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the other parties who'll make their presence felt. Read more analysis from Kevin German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel echoed the sentiment, saying "predictability and reliability" were "more important than ever" in the wake of the Brexit vote. "Any extended period of uncertainty is surely not good for the political and economic relations between Europe and Great Britain," he said in a statement. "Hopefully, the elections announced today by Prime Minister May can lead to more clarity and predictability in the negotiations with the European Union." But others were less positive, with many focusing on the risk Mrs May and the Conservatives are potentially taking. Belgian MEP Tom Vandenkendelaere, of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) grouping, tweeted: "Understandable choice to strengthen negotiation mandate for #Brexit, but at the same time huge gamble and risk of even greater instability." There was also speculation among European politicians over what impact the election result would have on Britain's approach to Brexit. Jo Leinen, a German MEP in the Party of European Socialists (PES), tweeted: "The elections in #GB on the 8th June are the perfect opportunity - especially for the young generation - to avert hard #Brexit." Polish MEP Ryszard Czarnecki, of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists political group, tweeted: "The Tories probably win, and GB will have a stronger mandate for the negotiations with the EU on Brexit." In Russia, meanwhile, the Kremlin has said it has "no particular interest" in the election. "No, there is no particular interest in it. Just, let's say, ordinary monitoring of the international situation. It is no business of ours," presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said.

Question: The European Union 's Brexit plans remain unchanged by Theresa May 's snap election announcement , the council @placeholder EU leaders has said .


The 51-year-old was with her grandson on a Route 133 bus on Brixton Road, Lambeth, when he was targeted. A woman who was already on the bus approached the youth and tried to stab him with a large knife, police said. CCTV footage has been released of the failed stabbing attempt at about 12:30 GMT on Boxing Day. The boy suffered a minor cut to the stomach before the attacker left the bus and ran towards Oval. Police described the attacker as an Asian woman, aged between 20 and 30, wearing a headscarf with a kangaroo print.

Question: A grandmother disarmed a female attacker who @placeholder at her 15 - year - old grandson with a knife on a south London bus .


At time of writing, the trailer for the comedy franchise "reboot" has more than 647,600 "dislikes", compared with about 220,800 "likes". That puts it 18th in YouTube's list of most disliked videos - higher than any other item of non-music content. The trailer's unusual ratio of views to dislikes suggests a concerted campaign to vote down the video. According to the ScreenCrush website, "a certain subset of people on the internet... are teaming up to downvote it into oblivion." Released in July, Ghostbusters sees Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig and others take on a franchise previously headlined by male leads. Its director, Paul Feig, recently told The Guardian that disliking the film because it has female stars was "just a non-starter". Justin Bieber's Baby video is currently unassailable at the top of the YouTube rundown with 6.05 million dislikes. Its nearest competitor, the promo for Rebecca Black's much-mocked Friday single, has just 2.05 million dislikes.

Question: The promo for the new Ghostbusters film has attracted more " dislikes " than any trailer @placeholder on the YouTube website .


Pilot Bertrand Piccard brought the plane in from Phoenix, Arizona, in a flight that lasted just over 18 hours. The zero-fuel aircraft has now reached halfway across America, with its immediate goal of getting to New York firmly in sight. The Swiss team wants to be on the East Coast at the start of June to begin planning the big Atlantic crossing. To complete its circumnavigation of the globe, the solar-powered aeroplane needs to get to Abu Dhabi, UAE. That is where the adventure got under way in March last year. As well as setting new aviation milestones, the stated purpose of the project is to demonstrate the capability of clean technologies. LEG 1: 9 March. Abu Dhabi (UAE) to Muscat (Oman) - 772km; 13 Hours 1 Minute LEG 2: 10 March. Muscat (Oman) to Ahmedabad (India) - 1,593km; 15 Hours 20 Minutes LEG 3: 18 March. Ahmedabad (India) to Varanasi (India) - 1,170km; 13 Hours 15 Minutes LEG 4: 18 March. Varanasi (India) to Mandalay (Myanmar) - 1,536km; 13 Hours 29 Minutes LEG 5: 29 March. Mandalay (Myanmar) to Chongqing (China) - 1,636km; 20 Hours 29 Minutes LEG 6: 21 April. Chongqing (China) to Nanjing (China) - 1,384km; 17 Hours 22 Minutes LEG 7: 30 May. Nanjing (China) to Nagoya (Japan) - 2,942km; 1 Day 20 Hours 9 Minutes LEG 8: 28 June. Nagoya (Japan) to Kalaeloa, Hawaii (US) - 8,924km; 4 Days 21 Hours 52 Minutes LEG 9: 21 April. Kalaeloa, Hawaii (US) to Mountain View, California (US) - 4,523km;  2 Days 17 Hours 29 Minutes LEG 10: 2 May. Mountain View, California (US) to Phoenix, Arizona (US) - 1,199km; 15 Hours 52 Minutes LEG 11: 12 May. Phoenix, Arizona (US) to Tulsa, Oklahoma (US) - 1,570 km; 18 Hours 10 Minutes

Question: Solar Impulse has landed in Tulsa , Oklahoma , @placeholder stage 11 in its round - the - world journey .


It was discovered by a customer in a Snickers bar in January. As a result, Mars is recalling chocolate in 55 countries. Mars Ireland described it as an "isolated incident" and said it had not received any complaints from consumers in the Republic of Ireland. The following products in Ireland have been recalled: Consumers who have any of the above products are asked not to consume it and to contact Mars Ireland in the following ways:

Question: Mars Ireland has ordered the recall of seven products after bits of @placeholder were found in a chocolate bar in Germany .


The prime minister will attempt to persuade the Dutch, French, Polish and German premiers to back his changes to the UK's EU membership. The EU Referendum Bill will confirm the question to be put to voters: "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?" The vote will take place by 2017. The referendum bill was announced as part of a packed legislative programme in the Queen's Speech, which also included an increase in free childcare, an income tax freeze and the right-to-buy for housing association tenants. BBC political editor Nick Robinson said the EU debate was "where the prime minister's focus is", adding that the answer to the referendum question "will decide whether this Queen's Speech is still being talked about in 100 years' time". Downing Street said the draft law's first reading in the Commons was a "concrete step towards settling the debate about the UK's membership of the EU". Mr Cameron has pledged to renegotiate the UK's relationship with the EU before holding the referendum, and has vowed to visit all 27 other member states ahead of a summit in June. First up are Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and French President Francois Hollande, followed by Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopa and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Mr Cameron has called for changes to EU migrants' welfare entitlement, while some Conservatives also want the primacy of British law to be reaffirmed. The PM has hinted he could vote to leave the EU if his requests are not granted, saying he "rules nothing out". Downing Street said the choice put to voters "should not be on the basis of the status quo but on a reformed relationship with the EU that the PM is determined to deliver". But some member states have questioned the need for any change to EU treaties, and ruled out any watering down of the key principle of freedom of movement. David Cameron is starting renegotiation of the terms of Britain's EU membership ahead of a referendum. Here is some further reading on what it all means: The UK and the EU: Better off in or out? What Britain wants from Europe Q&A: The UK's planned EU referendum Timeline: EU referendum debate Why Germany is David Cameron's new best friend Responding to the Queen's Speech, Labour's acting leader Harriet Harman said her party would back the referendum bill. Outgoing Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg warned against complacency and called for Mr Cameron to lead the bid for Britain to stay in the EU with conviction. UKIP leader Nigel Farage said the wording of the referendum question was "simple, straightforward" and "unambiguous". He added: "However, that Cameron is opting to give the pro-EU side the positive 'Yes' suggests strongly that his negotiations are so much fudge. "He has already decided which way he wants the answer to be given, without a single power repatriated."

Question: David Cameron is starting a tour of European capitals as a bill paving the way for the UK 's EU referendum is @placeholder in the House of Commons .


Until - perhaps - now. Next week, the Large Hadron Collider at Cern will be fired up again after a two-year programme of maintenance and upgrading. When it is, the energy with which it smashes particles will be twice what it was during the LHC's Higgs boson-discovering glory days. It is anticipated - hoped, even - that this increased capability might finally reveal the identity of "dark matter" - an invisible but critical entity that makes up about a quarter of the Universe. This is the topic of this week's Horizon programme on BBC Two. Dark matter arrived on most scientists' radar in 1974 thanks to the observations of American astronomer Vera Rubin, who noticed that stars orbiting the gravity-providing black holes at the centre of spiral galaxies like ours did so at the same speed regardless of their distance from the centre. This shouldn't happen - and doesn't happen in apparently comparable systems like our Solar System, where planets trapped by the gravity of the sun orbit increasingly slowly the further away they find themselves. Neptune takes 165 Earth years to plod around the Sun just once. This is what our understanding of gravity tells us should happen. Vera's stars racing around at the same speed were a surprise: there had to be more stuff there - providing more gravity - than we could see. Dark matter. Dark matter, then, is a generic term for the stuff (matter) that must be there but which we can't see (dark). But as to what this dark matter might actually be, so far science has drawn a blank. That's not to say that there's been no progress at all. It's now thought that dark matter isn't just ordinary stuff in the form of gas and dust and dead stars that are dark simply because they don't shine. It's now generally agreed that the dark matter is a miasma of (as yet unidentified) fundamental particles like (but not) the quarks and gluons, and so on, that make up the atoms with which we're more familiar. These "dark" fundamental particles are known as Wimps: Weakly Interacting Massive Particles. This acronym, like the term "dark matter" itself, is a description of how these theoretical dark matter creatures behave, rather than a definition of what they are: The "weakly interacting" bit means that they don't have much to do with ordinary matter. They fly straight though it. This makes them very tricky to detect, given that ordinary matter is all we have to detect them with. The "massive" part means simply that they have mass. It has nothing to do with their size. All that's left is "particle", which means, for want of a better description, that it's a thing. So dark matter is some form of fundamental particle that has Wimp characteristics. In theory, these Wimps could be a huge range of different things, but work done by Prof Carlos Frenk of Durham University has narrowed the search somewhat. It was Frenk and his colleagues who, at the start of their scientific careers in the 1980s, announced that dark matter had to be of the Wimp type and, additionally, it had to be "cold". At the time, it was a controversial claim, but in the years since, Frenk has added computerised flesh to the bones of the theory - by making universes. "It's quite a simple process," says Frenk. "All you need is gravity and a few basic assumptions." Key among these basic assumptions is Frenk's claim that dark matter is of the Wimp variety, and cold. The universes that emerge from his computer are indistinguishable from our own, providing a lot of support to the idea of cold dark matter. And because dark matter is part of the simulation, it can be made visible. The un-seeable revealed. "You can almost touch it!" enthuses Frenk. But so far, "almost" is the issue. The fact is that you can't touch it - which is why tracking it down "in the wild" has, to date, ended in disappointment. And yet it must be there, and it must be a fundamental particle - which is where Cern's Large Hadron Collider comes in. What happens in the LHC is that protons are fired around its 27km-long tube in opposite directions. Once they've been  accelerated to almost the speed of light, they're collided - smashed together. This does two things. Firstly, it makes the protons disintegrate, revealing the quarks, gluons and gauge bosons and the other fundamental particles of atomic matter. There are 17 particles in the standard model of particle physics - and all of them have been seen at the LHC. Secondly, the collisions might produce other, heavier particles. When they do, the LHC's detectors will record them. In charge of one of those detectors is Prof Dave Charlton from the University of Birmingham. "Sometimes you produce much more massive particles. These are the guys we're looking for." Dave - and everyone else at Cern - is looking for them because they could be the particles that could be the dark matter. It all sounds highly unlikely - the idea that ordinary matter produces matter you can't see or detect with the matter that made it - but it makes sense in terms of the uncontroversial concept of the Big Bang. If dark matter exists, it would have been produced at the Big Bang like everything else. And to see what actually was produced at the big bang, you need to create the conditions of the Big Bang - and the only place you're likely to get anywhere near those conditions is at the point of collision in the LHC. The faster the collision, the closer you get to the Big Bang temperature. So there's every reason to think that dark matter might well be produced in particle accelerators like the LHC. What's more, there's a mathematical theory that predicts that the 17 constituents of the standard model are matched by 17 more particles. This is based on a principle called "super symmetry". Prof John Ellis, a theoretical physicist from Kings College, London, who also works at Cern, is a fan of super symmetry. He's hopeful that some of these as yet theoretical super symmetrical particles will show up soon. "We were kind of hoping that they'd show up in the first run of the LHC. But they didn't," he confesses, ruefully. Ellis explains that what that means is that the super symmetric particles must be heavier than they thought, and they will only appear at higher energies than have been available - until now. In the LHC's second run, its collisions will occur with twice as much energy, giving Prof Ellis hope that the super symmetric particles might finally appear. "When we increase the energy of the LHC, we'll be able to look further - produce heavier super symmetric particles, if they exist. Let's see what happens!" It's crunch time for super symmetry. If it shows itself in the LHC, then all will be well. The dark matter problem would finally be solved, along with some other anomalies in the standard model of physics. But if, like last time, super symmetry fails to turn up, physicists and astrophysicists will have to come up with some other ideas for what our Universe is made from. "It might be," concedes Prof Ellis, "that we'll have to scratch our heads and start again." Dancing in the Dark - The End of Physics? is broadcast on BBC Two on Tuesday 17 March at 21:00.

Question: They say the hardest pieces of music to perform are often the simplest ones . And so it is with science - straightforward questions like " what is the Universe made from ? " have so far @placeholder the brightest minds in physics .


The rapper vowed to go through with the gig in Kodiak, which has a population of 6,000, after it came out top. He was greeted by locals, presented with a 'bear survival kit' and given a key to the town by the mayor. He tweeted: "Thank U (sic) Kodiak, I am honoured truly." 'Hijacked' campaign Pitbull's next gig is in Atlanta, Georgia, on Tuesday (31 July). The rapper's visit was organised after he vowed to play in whichever Walmart store received the most votes on Facebook. A Twitter campaign encouraged people to vote for Kodiak, Alaska - one of the national chain's most remote stores. The store is located in the town of Kodiak on the Alaskan island of the same name. In a video message posted online by the rapper earlier this month, he said: "I will go anywhere in the world for my fans. "I want to invite that someone who thinks that it's a joke to Kodiak, Alaska, with me." David Thorpe, who organised the campaign to have Pitbull sent to Alaska, made the trip Kodiak too. He posted a picture of himself with the rapper on Twitter. Born in Florida to Cuban parents, Pitbull's real name is Armando Christian Perez. He has had hits with On The Floor and Give Me Everything.

Question: Pitbull has fulfilled his promise to @placeholder a gig in a remote part of Alaska after a Facebook vote to have him play a supermarket show was hijacked .


The Great British Pottery Throw Down is part of a new season of BBC Two season programmes announced on Tuesday. Made by the team behind The Great British Bake Off, the six-part series aims to find pottery's hottest stars. The season will also see Nigella Lawson make her return to the channel, and Daniel Radcliffe star in a film about the video game series Grand Theft Auto. Announcing the new season, which also includes major new series from the Hairy Bikers, and Gareth Malone, BBC Two controller Kim Shillinglaw said the channel was in "great shape". Cult comedy Family Guy will move from BBC Three to be shown on the channel for its 13th UK season. And the channel hopes The Great British Pottery Throw Down will repeat the success of The Great British Bake Off, which migrated to BBC One. Cox will be joined by Keith Brymer-Jones and Kate Malone - two of the UK's pottery scene's most renowned potters. Each week, the 10 contestants will create a "Main Make", wherein the potters hope to translate a slab of clay into glazed glory, culminating in the reveal straight from the kiln. Those whose clay creations who fail to impress will leave the studio until the final, when one person proves themselves to be master of the wheel. Cox said: "Clay, mess, passionate potters and the team behind Bake Off. What's not to love? "There's something really raw and exciting about grabbing a lump of clay and creating something unique out of it." Simply Nigella - Lawson's first TV series since her split from Charles Saatchi and courtroom drug revelations - is billed as a "pared-down approach to cooking and eating". She said: "It's about food that makes our life easier, that makes us feel better, more alive, and less stressed." Harry Potter actor Radcliffe will star as Grand Theft Auto's "creative mastermind" Sam Houser in the drama Game Changer, which explores the controversy around the the hugely popular gaming franchise. Bill Paxton will play campaigning lawyer Jack Thompson, a man determined to stop the relentless rise of the game, which sees players immerse themselves in an underworld of violent criminal gangs. Other season highlights includes The Hairy Biker's mission to support elderly people in the community in Old School. And choirmaster Gareth Malone will launch a nationwide search for the best a cappella choir in The Naked Choir. Malone, who rose to fame with is reality TV show The Choir in 2007, said: "Singing a cappella is the ultimate test of any choir. Only once you've stripped away all those musical crutches that a backing track offers - it's possible to truly see, and test, the group's quality."

Question: Making is set to be the new baking on BBC Two as Sara Cox @placeholder the search for the UK 's " best budding potter " .


The HGV went down the embankment on the A82 at Stuckgowan in the early hours of Friday morning. Police Scotland said the driver was uninjured in the incident. Traffic was queued between Tarbet and Stuckgowan throughout Friday while the rear of the lorry continued to block one carriageway. Witnesses said the cab was stopped from entering the loch by a tree, about 3ft from the water's edge. Temporary traffic lights have been put in place to manage Easter traffic on the popular bank holiday route. The HGV is due to be removed early on Saturday morning when both carriageways will need to be closed. Eddie Ross of BEAR Scotland said: "Roads are busier due to the Bank Holiday weekend. Rather than close the road to recover the vehicle, Police Scotland have arranged for temporary traffic lights to remain in place. "We've made the area around the HGV safe for road users to get past until full recovery can be arranged."

Question: A lorry driver had a narrow escape after @placeholder in darkness , feet from the edge of Loch Lomond .


Every year, 100,000 women die from massive bleeding in the moments after giving birth. But an international study, in the Lancet, suggests "tranexamic acid" could cut that by a third. Postpartum haemorrhage is the biggest cause of death during pregnancy and early motherhood. "They gave me 41 bottles of blood," said Nosheen, from Rawalpindi, in Pakistan who nearly died after the birth of her daughter. Nosheen's life was saved only by an emergency hysterectomy. She told the BBC World Service's Health Check programme: "Doctors told me that they will have to remove my uterus to save my life. "My health is completely destroyed, and I am very upset about it." Tranexamic acid might have helped Nosheen. It stops blood clots breaking down to make it easier for the body to stem bleeding. It was invented by husband and wife Shosuke and Utako Okamoto in Japan in the 1960s. But they could not convince local doctors to perform a clinical trial for postpartum haemorrhage. So instead it was picked up by a pharmaceutical company and used as a treatment for heavy periods. And there the story nearly ended. Eventually, a study was coordinated by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in a collaboration of 193 hospitals mostly in Africa and Asia. Prof Utako Okamoto died, aged 98, just after the 20,000th and final patient was enrolled on to the trial that would finally prove she had been right. It found tranexamic acid cut deaths by a fifth overall and by 31% in those given the drug within three hours of birth. Prof Ian Roberts, one of the researchers, told the BBC: "We've got an important result. "We found an inexpensive drug, given in a single shot, that reduces the risk of bleeding to death, and it should play a role in reducing maternal mortality around the world." The World Health Organization said is would update its recommendations for treating postpartum haemorrhage treatment. The findings would not have been a surprise to Utako. The UK team went to visit the "physically small, but so switched-on firecracker" near the start of the trial. Her husband had already died. In a film they made, she told them: "It's going to be good, it's going to be effective. "Without doing the research, I know it will be effective." 77% of maternal deaths are in just 20 countries 1,360 mothers die per 100,000 births in Sierra Leone Colombia: 64 deaths per 100,000 Greece, Poland, Finland: Three maternal deaths per 100,000 In the poverty of post-War Japan, she and her husband decided to start researching blood because they could donate their own samples to study. "We wanted to work on something international, we wanted to discover new drugs to show our gratitude to humanity," she said. "We thought that would be wonderful." Prof Roberts says he was blown away and inspired by her and this is not the end of the journey. The drug might be cheap, but getting it into hospitals around the world will still be a challenge. Prof Roberts added: "It is an awful thing for a mother to die in childbirth. "When we started the trial, the staff would cry hearing about babies left without their mothers. "Making sure the treatment is available everywhere it can save a life is hugely important. "We shouldn't have children growing up without a mother for lack of a drug that costs a dollar." Dr Rizwana Chaudri, from Rawalpindi Medical College, said: "Women dying of postpartum haemorrhage, women brought dead to the hospital, there's so many of them. "You can't even think of that in a developed world, but over here this is a daily thing that goes on and on and on." Follow James on Twitter.

Question: A cheap drug has been shown to stop women bleeding to death , in a discovery that should change @placeholder around the world , say researchers .


The Birmingham bombs did not come out of nowhere. It is important to understand the political context and climate of the time in 1974. There had just been a general election that saw Harold Wilson - whose policy on Ireland was to reunify the country by peaceful means - returned to power. This gave the IRA some encouragement a political deal to achieve their goal of "Brits Out" might be in the offing. To further that seeming encouragement, throughout 1974 there had been secret back-channel talks between the British government and the IRA's ruling Army Council - brokered by the MI6 officer, Michael Oatley - via an intermediary who was trusted by both sides. The IRA wanted to pile the military pressure on the Brits in the autumn of 1974 with a view, in their eyes, to negotiate from a position of strength. The IRA did the same nearly 20 years later in the lead up to the IRA ceasefire of 1994 and the subsequent Good Friday Agreement, in 1998. In October 1974, as part of that pressure, the IRA bombed a pub in Guildford used by the army, killing four soldiers. Birmingham would seem to fit the same pattern - except The Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town pubs were not military targets. By and large, with notable exceptions, the IRA did not deliberately go out to slaughter innocent civilians, unlike Al Qaeda and so-called Islamic State. Birmingham seems to have been a locally-generated IRA attack, not authorised by the IRA's England Department in Dublin. I was told many years ago that it was probably ordered by a local IRA commander as a revenge attack for the way he believed the city had gloated over the death of an IRA man, James McDaid, who had blown himself up with his own bomb a week before the attacks on the Birmingham pubs. I remember interviewing Billy McKee, who had just been released from jail and was the commander of the IRA's Belfast Brigade, in the autumn of 1974 and a member of the IRA's ruling Army Council. He told me he knew nothing about the attacks which were carried out by a local IRA unit that was not authorised at the highest level of the organisation. McKee said he had only heard a month later that the IRA was responsible. McKee said: "I never approved of civilian loss of life. "I don't mind our own people and the 'Brits' [the security forces] going down, but I didn't agree with ordinary civilian people losing their lives." Although some people appear to know the identities of the surviving bombers, it is unlikely they will be charged as the evidence to bring a prosecution probably does not exist more than 40 years on. What is likely to come out of the new inquest is the extent to which West Midlands Police may have received warnings - possibly from sources within the local IRA - and failed to act. Whether this will be enough to satisfy the families, remains to be be seen. The ghosts of Birmingham still have to be laid to rest.

Question: Peter Taylor has been covering Northern Ireland for 40 years , with his reporting on The Troubles earning him a series of awards . The author of three books on the conflict , he looks back at events surrounding the Birmingham pub bombings in 1974 and what the @placeholder inquests could mean for the families of those killed and injured .


But could the House of Lords be Nigel Farage's next stop? Prime Minister Theresa May declined to rule out the idea when it was put to her during Prime Minister's Questions. This has reignited a debate about whether UKIP's acting leader could soon be sitting on the famous red benches. SNP MP George Kerevan raised the question during PMQs, asking Mrs May whether there had been any "official conversations" about giving Mr Farage a peerage. As MPs laughed at the question, the prime minister replied: "All I can say to him, I'm afraid, is that such matters are normally never discussed in public." The matter was raised with Mrs May's official spokeswoman after PMQs, who said: "We don't comment on individuals. There's a process to be followed. "You will have heard the prime minister talk in October about her views on the honours system and making sure that it recognises people who really contribute to society and their communities." Supporters of the move point to UKIP's record in elections - it comfortably won the 2014 European elections, got the third largest vote share in last year's general election, and achieved its long-held goal of an EU exit in June's referendum. Despite its vote share, UKIP has been left with just one MP and three members of the House of Lords - and these all switched allegiance to the party - compared with the Lib Dems' 104. Supporters say this is unfair and means the party is under-represented. Mr Farage has been promoting his own role recently, offering his services to the government as an intermediary to Mr Trump. However, in July he said his "political ambition has been achieved" with the Brexit vote. It's not too surprising that support for Mr Farage's peerage comes from UKIP leadership contenders Paul Nuttall and Suzanne Evans - perhaps more so that former Green Party leader Natalie Bennett also backs his elevation to the Lords. "No matter how deeply we disagree with UKIP's politics, they should also be far better represented in the House of Lords," she said last year. Conservative backbencher Peter Bone told the BBC he would have put Mr Farage in the Lords after the general election. Although life peers are appointed by the Queen, it is the prime minister who nominates them. The leader of the opposition and other party leaders are also given a set allocation, but UKIP does not, which has long been a bone of contention with Mr Farage's party. One-off announcements can also be made by the government to award peerages to people appointed as ministers who are not MPs.

Question: He has been in the European Parliament since 1999 , @placeholder to get elected to Westminster seven times , and recently made it to Trump Tower as a guest of the US president - elect .


Greece is now part way through its third eurozone bailout programme, worth up to 86bn euros (Â£74bn). The programme has encountered repeated delays as the lenders monitor compliance with policy conditions. Technical officials are expected to return to Athens soon to complete the negotiations. The "in principle" deal, as European Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici called it, was agreed at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Malta. The main elements in the latest agreement are commitments to reduce spending on pensions from 2019 and to collect more income tax from 2020 by lowering the tax-free threshold. Together the two measures are intended to improve the Greek government's finances by the equivalent of 2% of the country's economic activity, or GDP. To sweeten a pill that will be unpopular in Greece, the other eurozone countries agreed that Athens would be able take other measures to stimulate the economy, if the government finances perform better than expected. The next step is that technical experts from three European institutions and the IMF will return to Athens to try to negotiate the remaining details. The Dutch Finance Minister, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who chairs eurozone ministers' meetings, called for them to put the last dots on the i's and reach a full agreement as soon as possible at staff level - that's the staff of the institutions involved in monitoring the programme. That is needed before there is political decision to make that delayed payment. Once there is a staff agreement, Mr Dijsselbloem said that the Eurogroup ministers would also look at the targets Greece would need to aim for in the  government finances after the last bailout payments are made (due in 2018) and the question of debt sustainability - which means debt relief beyond what the eurozone has already provided. Debt relief previously has been in the form of reduced interest rates and longer payment periods, rather than reducing the amount of the principal sum that must ultimately be repaid. Further debt relief is likely to be in a similar form. Eurozone ministers have said it many times and it's politically more difficult for them with domestic political audiences if they were to explicitly write off a chunk of what they have lent. The International Monetary Fund has long argued that Greece needs more debt relief. That has been behind its reluctance to contribute financially to the third bailout. (It did chip in to the first two). Its involvement in the third so far is as an adviser and monitor of Greek performance. The rest of the eurozone, but especially Germany, would like the IMF to put some money in. That's not so much for the sake of reducing the eurozone contribution as for the better credibility they think the programme would have if the IMF did stump up some money. But IMF staff are so far unwilling to even recommend it to their board, which is made up of representatives of the agency's member countries. After the Malta meeting, IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said:  "We are at a point where we think there are good prospects for successfully concluding discussions on these outstanding policy issues during the next mission to Athens. "Such an agreement on policies will have to be followed by discussions with euro-area countries to ensure satisfactory assurances on a credible strategy to restore debt sustainability, before a programme is presented to the IMF executive board." The key deadline for the next instalment from the eurozone is July. Greece needs additional funds for debt payments that fall due. In Athens, the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said: "The Greek economy is ready to leave the crisis behind it." But there is a lot of scepticism about that. Hugo Dixon of BreakingViews says that the current discussion will only buy Greece some more time, until mid-2018. Thereafter, he argues, Greece will probably need a fourth bailout.

Question: Eurozone finance ministers say they have agreed with Greece the main elements of a deal to @placeholder a delayed bailout payment .


Brisbane-born McQueen, 29, has been called up by Wayne Bennett for the mid-season Test against Samoa on 6 May. The Gold Coast Titans back-rower and ex-Queensland Origin player qualifies to play through his English father. "In regards to it being controversial I get where people are coming from, but sport has changed now," said England's Graham, formerly of St Helens. The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs forward, 31, told BBC Radio Merseyside; "If Chris wants to play for England, he feels proud to play for England. "I can only presume that it is Chris that has knocked on Wayne's door rather than the other way around. "If you have got guys that want to represent their heritage or a part of where they're from then I'm all for that and I'd actively encourage that. "I've spoken to Australian-born players who qualify for England but some of them don't want to take it on, and some of them do. "We live in a very multicultural society, people travel, people are born and live in different countries, so I'm all for Chris wanting to play for England - I'm happy he's in the squad and he'll add a lot to us."

Question: Chris McQueens 's call - up for England should not be causing the controversy it is , says @placeholder James Graham .


In a BBC interview, Mr Ghani said IS was "not an Afghan phenomenon" and its atrocities had "alienated the people". "Afghans are now motivated by revenge," he said. "They [IS] have confronted the wrong people." Mr Ghani also called for anti-IS action at regional and international level. "There is no denial that we are dealing with very significant risks," he said, during a visit to the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos. "A lot of my diplomacy has been to create the regional consensus, and a region with the inheritance of previous animosities and short-sighted behaviour is something that is going to require effort and focus." The US state department said last week that it had designated the IS offshoot in Afghanistan as a terrorist organisation. It said the group had formed in January last year and was made up of former members of the Pakistani Taliban and Afghan Taliban. Afghan security forces have struggled to contain militant groups in the country - in December, the Taliban seized much of the strategic town of Sangin, and in September they briefly overran the northern Afghan city of Kunduz in one of their biggest victories since 2001. However, the Taliban's rivalry with the Islamic State group for dominance has also limited IS's influence in the region. The Taliban say they have set up a "special forces" unit with more than 1,000 fighters that aims to crush IS. In other comments, Mr Ghani warned that if peace talks with the Taliban did not start by April the conflict would intensify, with consequences across the region. "Time is not a friend," he said. "We all understand that February and March are crucial." The Afghan president said observers should understand that the war in his country was "just one component" of a wider war that also encompassed Pakistan. "The problems... are interrelated [and] cannot be solved by use of force in one country. He suggested Pakistan should take action against Taliban groups that did not agree to talks. "We need to see that we have common interests and we need to act together to preserve the state system and consolidate it," he said. Asked what message he had for Afghan migrants arriving in Europe, Mr Ghani said: "What I say to them is that you have no future in Europe. Europe is shutting down its borders. "You've just had an interview with the French prime minister - broadcast that to them. The future is Afghanistan."

Question: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has promised to " @placeholder " the Islamic State ( IS ) militant group , whose local offshoot has clashed with government forces and Taliban fighters .


Michael's family moved to Bushey in Hertfordshire when he was a teenager. He revealed that he performed in front of 400-500 people at the building during his pre-Wham! days, though the exact date is unknown. Local scout chairman, Michael Duffy, described the hut as a "music history landmark" and hopes a commemorative plaque can be installed. He said: "Interestingly, the stage is still pretty much as it was when George performed on it and we want to keep it just as it is. "The building is 60 years old and we've already invested £15,000 to make sure it lasts another 60 years. "We need a further £5,000 to do more work on its grounds." Mr Duffy is also the owner of The Three Crowns pub in Bushey where the four members of Wham! met and formed the group in 1981. George Michael and Andrew Ridgley met at Bushey Meads School and discovered a mutual interest in music. The pair - with backing singers, Pepsi and Shirlie - had a string of hits, which won them thousands of fans. Michael went on to have a total of seven UK number one singles as a solo artist - including A Different Corner and Jesus to a Child - and the same number of chart-topping albums. Michael died of natural causes at his home in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, on Christmas Day, aged 53. His funeral took place on Wednesday. The coroner's verdict on his death only came three weeks ago. Tests were ordered because an initial post-mortem examination was "inconclusive". Darren Salter, senior coroner for Oxfordshire, said the star had heart and liver disease.

Question: A dilapidated scout hut where George Michael played his first gig will " last another 60 years " after being @placeholder .


Security sources say gunmen seized the woman and her Yemeni driver on Tuesday morning as she was going to work. The French foreign ministry, which closed its embassy in Sanaa in February, said it was trying to locate and free the woman. It gave no further details, but urged French citizens to leave the country. Yemen is a base for al-Qaeda-affiliated militants and foreigners have been targets of kidnappings in the past. The security situation in the country sharply deteriorated after President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi resigned in January following a takeover by a Shia militia group, the Houthis. On Saturday he escaped his house arrest and fled to the southern city of Aden where he has since said he is withdrawing his resignation and resuming his duties, and has branded all measures adopted by the Houthis "null and illegitimate". In its first official statement since the Mr Hadi's departure from the capital, the Houthi group said the president had lost his legitimacy as head of state and was being sought as a fugitive of justice. The political turmoil which followed the takeover caused several countries, including France, to close their diplomatic missions, withdraw staff and call on their nationals to leave the country.

Question: A French woman working for an international @placeholder in Yemen 's capital , Sanaa , has been kidnapped , the French foreign ministry says .


Even at 80 years old, Woody Allen is too young to remember the glittering Cafe Society of the 1920s and '30s that both informs his latest film and gives its title. Yet that has not stopped him recreating the nightclubs, jazz bars and pool parties of this bygone era, in a film in which movie stars and Hollywood moguls rub shoulders with criminals and bootleggers. The result is a film of pronounced juxtapositions: One in which a scene of tuxedoed and glamorously gowned socialites can slip into another in which a man is shot in the head in a barber's chair. Could this be seen as Allen's homage to Martin Scorsese, another New York film-maker with a distinctive personal style, whose work abounds with such nefarious mayhem? "I should be so lucky!" he exclaims. One certainly does not expect a Woody Allen film to feature dead bodies being disposed of in wet concrete, or it to have a character who ultimately meets his maker via the electric chair. "Oh no, [but] you should," he says with mock indignation. "Right from the start, [in 1969's] Take the Money and Run - even though it was a silly picture, I played a gangster. "I made Match Point, which was a murder picture, as was Cassandra's Dream and Irrational Man and Manhattan Murder Mystery. "I'm not graphic in general, but here it was indicated. I was writing about my [New York Jewish] background, and that was what happened." Born in the Bronx and raised in Brooklyn, the director - born Allan Stewart Konigsberg - entered the world on 1 December 1935 - just five weeks after the Jewish-American gangster Dutch Schultz violently left it. In Cafe Society, the romantic travails of youthful Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) are largely kept separate from the more ruthless activities of his brother Ben (Corey Stoll). It is clear, however, that Allen's overall intention is to create a picaresque tableau - one in which the choices people make have a profound impact on whether they will ever achieve or experience lasting happiness. Kristen Stewart's character Vonnie - a fresh-faced young studio secretary who is torn between Eisenberg's bashful ardour and the more seasoned attentions of a married movie star agent (Steve Carell) - is a case in point. Which man she chooses will have massive repercussions not just for her respective paramours, but also a wealthy young woman named Veronica (Blake Lively) who comes to share more than Vonnie's (albeit abbreviated) name. Stewart, known to millions for her Bella Swan role in the Twilight film series, admits Vonnie's "mannerisms and demeanour are pretty outside of [her] more immediate go-to personality traits". "But I'm far from a character actor, and Vonnie was definitely in there somewhere - I wasn't faking it. "The movie would only work if she had this really contagious, enticing and inviting willingness to be impulsive - to live in the moment and appreciate life in a shameless, non-judgemental way. "For a story told in the context of that era, it's really forward and cool and modern that she can indulge in unconventional relationships and not feel bad about it at a time when young respectable women were supposed to do very particular things." For Eisenberg, the chance to travel back in time was as much of an attraction as the opportunity to work again with Allen, a director he collaborated with previously on the 2012 portmanteau comedy To Rome with Love. "It's a surreal experience," he explains. "You enter into a different time period, a romantic glamour that doesn't exist anymore. "You mourn the loss of that sweet formality, if not the horrible poverty, racism and sexism. At the same time, the clothes were nicer." Eisenberg's own mannerisms and demeanour inevitably recall those of Allen, the role of Bobby being one it would easy to imagine him playing at the beginning of his career. The Social Network and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice star says he tried to make "the character [his] own", while conceding it was difficult not to let some of Allen's familiar inflections seep into his portrayal. "It's written by Woody Allen, it's written in his style and cadence [and] he's standing a foot from me every day giving me direction," the 32-year-old shrugs. "I think it's impossible not to be inspired or affected by him subconsciously, even though I made every conscious effort to avoid it." Soon to celebrate his 81st birthday, Allen's ability to secure financing for his projects without surrendering artistic control makes him an anomaly in today's Hollywood. He's had his ups and downs, many of the latter as a consequence of his turbulent personal life. Cafe Society, though, shows his working routine to be as robust and as streamlined as ever. "When I finish a script I never have to show it to anybody," he reveals. "I never have to get any approval for it or approval of casting. "I raise the money privately, so I make the movie I want to make and then I hope people like it. "As a director, I would not have liked to work in Hollywood in the '30s, because the studio ruled film-makers and told them who to cast and what scripts they had to do. "I've been very blessed, very lucky - and I've never had to argue for final cut." Woody Allen, Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart were speaking at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. Cafe Society opens in the UK on 2 September. Follow us on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, on Instagram, or email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

Question: Film - maker Woody Allen tells the BBC News website the gangster mayhem in his latest period comedy is @placeholder , pointing out that murder and criminality has always been a feature in his work .


Set in a fictional London under Nazi occupation, the first episode aired on Sunday and got 6.1m viewers. Around 100 complaints had come into the BBC 24 hours after it went out, with numbers rising on Tuesday. The BBC said: "We take audibility seriously and we will look at the sound levels on the programme in time for the next episode." The drama stars Sam Riley as an officer working simultaneously with the Nazis and the British Resistance. Some viewers took to Twitter to air their views on the sound levels. One user Luanne wrote: "I am 12 minutes into SS-GB & I'm turning on the subtitles. All this tough guy, breathy, growling, mumbling, I can't understand you!" TV critic Emma Bullimore told the BBC: "We are living in astonishingly ambitious times for TV drama, attracting world class talent to the small screen, and sometimes this means the basics of storytelling get slightly overlooked - either in terms of audibility or making a story too complicated or difficult to follow (as Sherlock was criticised for). "However, it does feel that mumbling is the latest bandwagon for BBC bashers to jump on and the odd muffled word gets spun into a story. Actually, my enjoyment of SS-GB wasn't marred by sound issues." It's not the first time the issue of mumbling on TV dramas has been raised, with past programmes such as Jamaica Inn and Happy Valley having hit the headlines over the audio. Back in 2013, the BBC's director general, Tony Hall, told the Radio Times: "I don't want to sound like a grumpy old man but I think muttering is something we could look at." Analysis - do flat TVs mean flat sound? Leo Kelion, technology desk editor As televisions get thinner, their makers have less space to build in speakers unless they opt to add sound equipment to the sides and/or below the screens, threatening to make them look less "sleek". In many cases families might be best advised to buy a separate soundbar or speaker system. This isn't just the case for budget TVs. In many cases manufacturers assume those that can afford the higher-end models will invest in the extra technology. Sony recently took a new approach to the problem with a TV that has no dedicated speakers but rather produces sound by vibrating the OLED screen itself. The jury is still out on how well that works. But in general, if the vast majority of programmes on yours set sound fine and only a few don't, then the problem is likely to be with how they have been mixed rather than the TVs themselves. Speaking on the Today programme, ITV's Victoria creator, Daisy Goodwin, pointed out that Riley may have made a conscious choice to not speak with perfectly clear diction in keeping with his character. SS-GB, a five-part drama, also stars Kate Bosworth as a US journalist for the New York Times. Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

Question: The BBC has @placeholder to " look at " sound levels for its new drama SS - GB after viewers complained about mumbling .


The attack took place about 15km (9 miles) west of the city late on Friday, the UN Mission in Mali said. The UN took over security after French-led forces intervened to retake northern cities from Islamist militants in 2013. But at least 35 UN troops have been killed and 140 wounded since July 2013. The al-Qaeda-linked militants fled into the Sahara desert after the French intervention and have since carried out suicide bombings and hit-and-run attacks on the UN troops. The UN mission (Minusma) said that in the latest attack gunmen stopped the convoy and "coldly killed two of the drivers" before setting the trucks on fire. A third convoy member was wounded. On Wednesday a suicide attack on a UN base in the town of Ansongo in northern Mali killed three civilians and wounded nine peacekeepers from Niger. Al-Mourabitoun, a group headed by former al-Qaeda fighter Mokhtar Belmokhtar, said it carried out that attack. The United Nations has some 9,000 personnel in Mali. Northern Mali has been a flashpoint of conflict since Mali's independence from France in 1960, with Tuareg rebels campaigning for independence or more autonomy. The emergence of jihadist groups in recent years has made the conflict even more complex.

Question: A United Nations @placeholder convoy has been attacked near the city of Gao in northern Mali , with two civilian drivers killed .


However, the RSPCA said Natasha Gregory, 22, from Swindon, would also be informed of the potential hazards of dyeing cats. The cat, called oi! Kitty, was reportedly seen being thrown over the garden fence of a man on 18 September, who called RSPCA officers. An RSPCA spokeswoman at the time criticised it as a "sick prank". The organisation's officers washed the two-year-old cat, but its colour only faded slightly. Following widespread media coverage, Miss Gregory, who has pink hair and says she "loves" the colour, contacted the RSPCA and asked them to return the animal. She told the BBC: "I love my cat - that cat is fed better than most people. I wanted people to know she wasn't harmed at all. "I wont be doing it again - I was so shocked to see my cat on the news. I thought I'd never see her again." An RSPCA spokeswoman said the organisation would visit Miss Gregory to give her advice on animal care. She added: "Following the visit, as no offence has been committed and as a vet has confirmed the cat is in good health, she will be returned to her owner." She said the dye would have to grow out.

Question: A woman who dyed her cat pink with @placeholder colouring will have her pet returned to her .


It wasn't so much "here's a rabbit from the hat" but more: "look over there - a squirrel!" So, with some nasty new forecasts, and without big changes in the near-term tax and spending totals, George Osborne opted to look busy - taking from bigger business and particularly the soft drink firms that put sugar into their fizz, while giving to smaller business, savers and higher rate income tax payers. He got busy at a very local level, even finding £5m from banker fines to build a leisure centre in Helensburgh. He halved tolls on the Severn Bridge and he's upgrading trunk roads across northern England (which ought to be very welcome to Scottish hauliers). Meanwhile, as the Chancellor was flunking some of his own fiscal tests, this Budget flunked a test that others had set him - to simplify the UK's horribly complex taxation system. By the time we find out if the claims of getting to a fiscal surplus, using 2020 vision, we'll surely have long forgotten the Budget of 16 March 2016. While Mr Osborne sounds confident about getting to a £10bn surplus, the forecasts on which he is basing that have widely divergent possible outcomes. He is going with the central one. But if you look at the forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility, it has a 'fan diagram' showing the wide range of possible growth outcomes. The variation is not only for 2020, but for 2016 - ranging between growth of a sizzling 3.8% and contraction of a dismal 0.2%. So as forecasts are near certain to be wrong, how instead might this Budget be remembered? Perhaps for something that George Osborne only briefly mentioned - productivity. It's turned out disappointingly again. And that's knocked back the growth estimates for the economy, as well as for pay, for tax revenue, and for company profits over the rest of the decade. Britain's not alone in that. But keeping company with the USA on such numbers is not that reassuring. While George Osborne didn't say much about productivity, the Office for Budget Responsibility did. It was OBR numbers that forced the Chancellor into that fancy financial footwork. With its forecast last November, the OBR had taken healthy signs of productivity growth from the middle two quarters of last year, and projected them forward. However, the fourth quarter pushed productivity backwards by 1.2%, eliminating the progress made in the previous six months. Having assumed 1.4% growth over three quarters, it ended up with nothing. Duly chastened, the OBR turned more pessimistic this month, and reckons productivity will continue to drag. Back in 2010, when it was set up, the independent forecaster expected productivity to grow by 22% over the course of this decade. It now thinks that will be more like 14.5%. The US Congressional Budget Office, equivalent to the OBR, has revised forecasts down to a slightly greater extent. And as that is the main, long-term driver of real pay, it means Britain's standard of living will improve from the recession, but at only two thirds of the rate we've come to expect. So over the rest of this decade, the forecast for the average annual rate of growth in output has been lowered from 4.3% to 3.7%. Pay is expected to grow by 3.9% per year on average, down 0.4% points from the November forecast, and mainly due to low productivity. Similarly, profits (non-oil and non-financial) are due to grow by 3.5% on average, down from 4.6% forecast in November. This sluggish productivity continues to puzzle economists. As highlighted in my previous blog, the value of output per hour ought to be improving as the workforce deploys higher skill levels coming out of university. And surely if employers are recruiting as enthusiastically as they have done in the past few years, that ought to be a sign that they are running out of slack with which to fulfil growing order books. But it's not. One part of the explanation can be found in the oil and gas industry, which has productivity 12 times higher than the economy as a whole.  Gas and electricity utilities are four times higher. (Tourism is roughly half as high.) But it is these highly productive sectors that have seen the worst performance in productivity growth. The energy utilities have gone from 5% annual growth in the years before the Great Recession to 5% average declines. Oil and gas, counted under "mining and quarrying" by statisticians, has seen annual declines of nearly 6% as production has slipped and costs have soared. Manufacturing has held on to growth, but it's much slower than it was - down from 3.1% in the pre-crunch years to only 0.4% in the period from 2008 to 2015. For the big picture, across the British economy and between 1994 and the start of 2008, productivity grew by 1.9% in the average year. Remember: that was the key measure that drove up prosperity. But between early 2008 and the third quarter of 2015, it fell before its sluggish rise. The OBR tells us the average year saw only 0.1% per year. Economics logic suggests that this process will lead to the momentum in job creation running out of steam. At 5.1% unemployment in the March figures (published three hours before Mr Osborne started his Budget speech), covering the UK-wide Labour Force Survey in November to January, that is forecast to fall to 4.9%, and then to rise a bit. That is partly because the higher National Living Wage, from next month, is expected to cost jobs. (In Scotland, with higher unemployment in the March figures, it's now at 6.1%.) Talking of Scotland, a quick run through the other specific measures in the Budget. The hike in the starting rate for income tax, and for higher rate tax from April 2017, presents a challenge to the Scottish government in its 2017-18 budget. The basic rate threshold is controlled by Westminster, but its impact in Scotland falls on Holyrood. That is, at £11,500, there will be less revenue once MSPs have control over income tax. So will there be compensation from Westminster, having pledged there will be 'no detriment' to Holyrood from decisions made by the Chancellor? Or will the next Scottish government have to cut its cloth to lower basic rate revenue. And what of higher rate tax?  Will MSPs want to raise the threshold at which people starting paying 40% income tax to £45,000?  Listening to John Swinney's reaction, it seems not. But if he remains finance secretary, would he be content to see Scottish tax higher than the rest of the UK? He's sought to avoid that in the past. The Scottish government has prided itself on its rates relief for small business. But George Osborne has gone much further on that, while also pegging future rate rises to a lower measure of inflation. That means a sacrifice of tax revenue. Will Holyrood choose to do likewise, at a price? There are changes to Capital Gains Tax and tax on dividends which are tricksy for Holyrood. Because the tax rates for these are pitched well below the 40% higher rate of income tax, there will be an incentive for better-off business owners to take more of their earnings as dividends and capital gains than as pay. That would divert the payment of tax - from Holyrood, which gets the income tax element, to Westminster, which gets tax on dividends and capital gains. On oil and gas, it's easy to cut tax rates when hardly any profit is being made. The "effective abolition" of Petroleum Revenue Tax removes a higher rate of tax on older oil and gas fields. And with Supplementary Charge cut from 30% to 20%, it means a flat rate tax on profits of 40%. But due to high levels of investment and low profitability, the Treasury is seeing a reverse of the tax flow. The OBR forecast, on which it is now working, points to around £1bn being repaid to oil and gas producers in each of the next few years. Think how that is going to look in future publications of Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland, or GERS - the document that last week showed a near £15bn deficit for 2014-15. Whereas oil and gas has delivered many billions of revenue to GERS each year, the forecasts suggests, for the first time, an annual cost to a Scottish treasury (if it were to control offshore revenues) of perhaps £800m. A sugar levy is being introduced for public health reasons - giving the soft drinks industry a lead time of two years in which to lower sugar content, or pay a £500m annual price. So far, it has cross-party support. It had been seen as un-Conservative to intervene in the market so directly. But if a Tory Chancellor can meddle in the choices behind bad dietary habits, it opens the door to politicians at Holyrood - typically more interventionist - to target a broader range of choices.

Question: This was a Budget with a message about the next @placeholder , and a massage of difficult underlying figures .


Sarah Champion said there was an "insidious" sexist culture in which "some Tories are very good at gesticulating about female assets". Ms Champion became a Labour MP a year ago after winning a by-election in Rotherham. She formerly worked as an arts administrator and chief executive of a children's hospice. Ms Champion did not rule out the possibility that male Labour MPs also engaged in sexist behaviour in the chamber, but said she had not witnessed it. The Conservative Party declined to comment. In an interview with BBC Radio Sheffield, Ms Champion said female MPs from her party were often taunted while speaking in the Commons chamber. She said: "I think it is utterly appalling. It's deliberately trying to degrade people, it's sexist and people ought to be pulled for it." Interviewer Rony Robinson asked, for clarity, whether she was saying that "MPs opposite you, you're standing up making a speech about something, and they are using their hands to imitate breasts and bottoms?". She replied: "Yes". She said she had not reported the problem to Commons Speaker John Bercow, adding: "You have to pretty much ignore it. "If you see it and you can catch someone's eye then telling them what you think about them, but then you end up in a slagging match which I don't think is helpful. "It's so insidious, it's so part of the culture there, it's overlooked rather than ignored I'd say." Ms Champion is not the first female MP to complain about the behaviour of their male colleagues in the Commons chamber. In 2004, a study by researchers from Birkbeck College found "shocking" levels of sexist abuse, with male MPs of all parties pretending to juggle imaginary breasts and jeering "melons" as women made Commons speeches. Some 83 MPs gave their answers in 100 hours of taped interviews for the study "Whose Secretary are You, minister".

Question: An MP has @placeholder some Conservatives make lurid hand gestures towards Labour women during debates in the Commons .


This article was first published on 15 March, 2016 No-one did more to glamorise and popularise professional golf than Arnold Palmer, the 86-year-old host of the invitational tournament that bears his name and which starts at Bay Hill on Thursday. Without his charismatic showmanship and commitment to the four majors, it is hard to imagine golf enjoying the status it does today. Tiger Woods has been one of the world's most eminent sportsmen in the past two decades, but the impact of the 14-time major champion's brilliance would not have been so great without the foundations laid by Palmer. Between 1958 and 1964, the man they called 'The King' won seven major titles and harnessed the new television era for golf as viewers fell in love with 'Arnie' and his heart-on-sleeve style. He was followed by hordes of fans on both sides of the Atlantic, who became known as Arnie's Army. This was especially significant because Palmer continued to travel to the UK for The Open at a time when many American pros were finding the oldest major rather inconvenient. But golf's biggest hero embraced the journey across the pond and in doing so breathed new life into The Open. The reward for his admirable perseverance was back-to-back Claret Jugs at Royal Birkdale and Royal Troon in 1961 and 1962. That latter victory, at this year's Open host, attracted the championship's strongest field since the days of Bobby Jones and Gene Sarazen, forever re-establishing the event's place among the majors. Jack Nicklaus may have come along to wrest the mantle of the sport's leading player from Palmer, but his fame never waned. To this day you can order an 'Arnold Palmer' and the bartender will know to pour an iced tea with lemonade. Even at the age of 86, he still ranks the fifth-highest earner in the game. According to Golf Digest's latest figures, Palmer's $40m income last year was beaten only by Jordan Spieth, Phil Mickelson, Woods and Rory McIlroy. Mr Palmer, as the players refer to him, has always been an energetic ambassador for his event, conspicuous on the range, the course, in the clubhouse and the press tent. But, sadly, this year he is likely to be less visible. "I don't think his liveliness is quite there like it has been," his grandson Sam Saunders, a PGA Tour player, recently told ESPN. "The one thing that will never go away is his toughness. He's not just going to lay down and not do anything. He'll still be out there trying to push it. "It's a very busy week. There's a lot of stuff going on. It's tiring for me and I'm 28. At 86, he's doing OK, but I think his availability to get out and be on the course and be seen as much will be limited." Although age is catching up with his grandfather, Saunders revealed Palmer's eye for the game remains undiminished. "It's amazing what he can still see and do," he said. "Every now and then, the words of wisdom that come out are mind-boggling. There are very few people in golf who know the game, physically or mentally, better than him." The stature of this golfing great helps attract what are always strong fields at Bay Hill. McIlroy chose to play there for the first time last year, principally to honour Palmer's contribution to the game. The Northern Irishman returns again this week for what will be his last strokeplay outing before next month's Masters and is joined in Orlando by Jason Day, Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson. Adam Scott is also in the field, bidding to become the first man to win three PGA Tour titles in a row since Woods collected five in succession in 2007/8. Two years ago, Australian Scott led for three rounds before a closing 76 handed victory to Matt Every. The American retained the title 12 months later, so again enjoyed a congratulatory handshake with the exalted host behind the home green. But no-one has been more successful there than the injured Woods, an eight-time champion who misses the tournament for the third year running. Woods may not be there but, like all the PGA Tour's events, it will still be screened nationwide and internationally. This, in large part, is Palmer's legacy. Not only did he make the game more popular but, in 1995, he also co-founded America's Golf Channel, which is currently available in 80 million US households. The ultimate beneficiaries of Palmer's legacy are the players themselves. This week, they will all make time for the grand old man of golf, and he will appreciate their gestures. "All the guys coming to the tournament and seeing the familiar faces will definitely get his spirits up," said Saunders. It is the least they can do.

Question: With another $ 6.3 m up for grabs when the PGA Tour completes its Florida swing , it is an opportune moment to salute the prime architect behind such @placeholder .


Media playback is unsupported on your device 13 November 2014 Last updated at 17:13 GMT Kenya Airways reports a loss of $116m (Â£73m) for the six months up to September, citing the Ebola outbreak in three West African countries and rising insecurity in Kenya. Liberia's President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, lifts the state of emergency due to recent progress made against the virus. Here is the latest Ebola news for Thursday 13 November - in 15 seconds.

Question: The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres ( MSF ) says it is to host clinical trials of new Ebola treatments in West Africa , one of them using the blood of @placeholder patients .


They say a 78 million-year-old fossil of a pregnant plesiosaur suggests they gave birth to single, large young. Writing in Science, they say this also suggests a degree of parental care. The fossil, the first of a pregnant plesiosaur found, is at the US Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. After being excavated from a ranch in Kansas, US, the 5m-long fossil skeleton Polycotylus latippinus  lay for two decades in the basement of the Los Angeles museum waiting to be chiselled from its rocky casing. Two years ago when researchers began to piece the bones together they quickly realised that they were in fact dealing with two separate animals; an adult plesiosaur and a smaller juvenile. The study's authors report that the juvenile was unlikely to have been eaten by the larger reptile because its tiny bones showed no evidence of bite marks, and its soft, immature skeleton suggested an animal only two-thirds of the way through its development. For more than 200 years palaeontologists have speculated about how these colossal Cretaceous animals reproduced. Many believed the plesiosaur was too cumbersome to drag itself up the beach to lay eggs, and so must have given birth to live young. "[The find] provides the first direct evidence for live birth in plesiosaur," said palaeontologist Adam Smith from the Thinktank Centre, Birmingham Science Museum, UK. "It's a very interesting find...[and] has been a long time coming." "The lack of fossil evidence of a pregnant plesiosaur was frustrating," explained the study's lead author Frank O'Keefe, from Marshall University in Huntington, US. But he added: "What is really surprising about this fossil [is] that plesiosaurs [reproduce] differently to other marine reptiles... they give birth to one big baby instead of a lot of little babies." By making comparisons with modern animals, such as whales, which give birth to larger, single young and then go on to care for them, Dr O'Keefe and his colleague, Luis Chiappe from the museum, attempt to infer something about plesiosaur behaviour. In a similar way to land-dwelling dinosaurs, which are thought to have provided food for their nest-bound young, plesiosaurs, the authors suggest, might have been doting parents. But Dr Smith was less convinced. He said that it was "certainly quite possible... but is very speculative". P. latippinus's close relatives had three young at one time.  It is possible the P. latippinus evolved to have only one, and care for it, he told BBC News, but more pregnant specimens are needed to be more certain of this. Dr O'Keefe agreed, explaining that unlike on land where nests are preserved, studying the behaviour of ancient marine creatures is very difficult. "When you get right down to it, behaviour doesn't fossilise, so we are stuck trying to make these inferences using modern animals where we can observe their behaviour," he explained.

Question: Scientists say they have found the first evidence that giant @placeholder reptiles - which lived at the same time as dinosaurs - gave birth to live young rather than laying eggs .


Eight years ago, business guru Marianna Olszewski had a problem. The author of Live it, Love it, Earn it (A Woman's Guide to Financial Freedom) offers financial advice directed at American women. Some of her personal fortune had been invested using a secret offshore company. But in 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, she decided she wanted to get her $1.8m back. The problem was that the bank that held the funds wouldn't release the cash without knowing who was behind the offshore company - and Ms Olszewski was desperate to keep her identity secret. Mossack Fonseca was willing to help. It offered to provide somebody who would pretend to be the real - or beneficial - owner of the cash. An email from a Mossack executive to Ms Olszewski in January 2009 explained how she could deceive the bank: "We may use a natural person who will act as the beneficial ownerâ€¦ and therefore his name will be disclosed to the bank. Since this is a very sensitive matter, fees are quite high." She replied: "I do think we should go ahead with the natural person however I want to have your promise that youâ€¦ will handle this in the most sensitive manner." The "natural person" Mossack Fonseca offered turned out to be a 90-year-old British citizen. Mossack Fonseca told Ms Olszewski that the service would be expensive because it was so sensitive.  Fees were normally $30,000 (about Â£20,000 at the time) for the first year and $15,000 for every subsequent year. But she was offered a discount - just $10,000 for year one and $7,500 for every year after. One reason for the high cost is likely to have been the degree of deception. Another email from Mossack details what would be involved: "We need to hire the Natural Person Nominee, pay him, make him sign lots of documents to cover us, make him sign resignations, make him get some proofs evidencing that he has the economic capacity to place such amount of moneys, letters of reference, proof of domicile, etc, etc." It's a blatant breach of anti-money laundering rules, but Ms Olszewski signed up anyway. Andrew Mitchell QC, one of the UK's leading experts on money laundering, has no doubt the bank would have been deceived. "Anybody looking at all these documents will believe that it is entirely legitimately owned by this person," he said. "Mossack Fonseca are prepared to go to that length in order to assist their client. Basically creating a real, live human being to look to the world as if they own the assets, when in fact and in truth, they know, as their client knows, that that person is a sham." The revelation that offshore companies are providing services of this nature could undermine the UK government's plan to create greater transparency. UK Prime Minister David Cameron has pinned his hopes for reform on a new register that will force British companies to reveal their beneficial owners. But the register won't work properly if companies like Mossack Fonseca pay people to pretend to be the beneficial owner. Marianna Olszewski failed to respond when Panorama attempted to contact her about this story by phone, email and letter. In a statement Mossack Fonseca said: "Your allegations that we provide structures supposedly designed to hide the identity of the real owners, are completely unsupported and false. "We do not provide beneficiary services to deceive banks. It is difficult, not to say impossible, not to provide banks with the identity of final beneficiaries and the origin of funds."

Question: The Panamanian @placeholder firm Mossack Fonseca says it does everything possible to ensure the offshore companies it sets up are not used for illicit purposes . But documents seen by the BBC show that is n't always true . One of the clearest examples of how the company breaks the rules involves a 90 - year - old British man and an American millionaire .


Sean Dalton was one of three people killed when a booby-trap device exploded in August 1988. The bomb had been left for the security forces at Kildrum Gardens in Creggan. The Police Ombudsman's Office began an investigation after receiving a public complaint about the police response. Mr Dalton, who was 55 and Sheila Lewis, 60, were murdered. Another man Gerard Curran died the following year from his injuries. In a statement released on the anniversary of the bomb, Mr Dalton's family said they had asked that allegations that the RUC had known that the flat had been booby-trapped be investigated in 2005. "It was agreed we would receive a final report in the autumn of 2010. Since then we have been promised many times that the report would be ready, yet we are still waiting. "We were recently assured that we would receive the report at the end of August 2011 to coincide with the 23rd anniversary. "In a letter dated 26 August 2011 to the Pat Finucane Centre, however, the ombudsman has reneged on that promise and says the report will be delayed yet again. "We are deeply disappointed and urge the ombudsman to release the report without further delay." Al Hutchinson is the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland. A spokesman for his office said: "We can understand the family's frustration and can assure them that it will be the next major historical report that we publish." Lost Lives, the book which chronicles every death in Northern Ireland's Troubles, said the incident was described as the "good neighbours bomb". It said the IRA had kidnapped a man and booby-trapped his flat in the expectation it would be searched by the security forces. Instead the three victims, who had noticed their neighbour's absence, went to the man's flat. Mr Dalton managed to get inside which detonated the bomb and demolished the flat. According to Lost Lives, Mr Dalton's family later claimed the police had been negligent in allowing civilians to approach the flat. They alleged the police were aware it had been booby-trapped but the bomb had been left in place to protect an informant. The family stressed that the IRA was ultimately responsible for what happened but said the RUC should have also accepted its responsibility.

Question: The family of a man killed by an IRA bomb 23 years ago have @placeholder a further delay in the publication of a report into how the RUC dealt with the attack .


After a meeting in Rome with Greek PM Alexis Tsipras, Italian PM Matteo Renzi said his country would "give Greece a hand" without always agreeing with it. Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has reportedly suggested a new deal for exchanging debt with bailout creditors. The radical left Greek government was elected on a pledge to end austerity. The Syriza party, led by Mr Tsipras, won last Sunday's vote by promising to write off half the country's massive debt, sparking alarm on the markets and among eurozone officials. The Greek government also said it would refuse new loans from the EU and the IMF, prompting questions about how it would finance itself. This week, however, Greek leaders on a tour of European capitals sought to allay some of the concerns. According to the Financial Times newspaper, Mr Varoufakis has retreated from the idea of writing off debt, instead suggesting that it could be exchanged for bonds that would be repaid only if the Greek economy grew. The president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, has said the bloc will "have to adapt a certain number of policies" to accommodate Greece. Mr Tsipras meets Mr Juncker in Brussels on Tuesday. He will also travel to France to meet President Francois Hollande, whose government has also suggested a softer line on Greece. At the meeting with Mr Renzi in Rome on Tuesday, Mr Tsipras said Europe had to "put social cohesion and growth before the policies of poverty and insecurity". Mr Renzi echoed him, saying that the world was "calling on Europe to invest in growth, not austerity". However, he did not comment on the details of Greece's proposals. Despite the conciliatory remarks, many hurdles remain. "Varoufakis is intelligent, but he is underestimating the problems," a eurozone official quoted by the Reuters news agency said. Greece still has a debt of €315bn - about 175% of GDP - despite some creditors writing down debts in a renegotiation in 2012. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has ruled out debt cancellation, saying creditors had already made concessions. This week, Mr Varoufakis said that he wanted a new plan for fiscal stimulus in place by the end of May, with repayment of existing debt tied to Greece's ability to restore growth. Mr Varoufakis added that he would negotiate separately with the European Commission, the IMF and the European Central Bank but not with officials representing all three - the so-called "troika", which he described as a "committee of technocrats". The troika agreed a €240bn (£179bn; $270bn) bailout with the previous Greek government. Austerity measures imposed in an effort to manage the debt prompted outrage in Greece and led voters to reject the previous government. Instead, Greeks voted Syriza into power after an election campaign dominated by the party's message of change. In interviews in the German media published on Saturday, Mrs Merkel said she still wanted Greece to stay in the eurozone but did not "envisage fresh debt cancellation". Greece's current programme of loans ends on 28 February. A final bailout tranche of €7.2bn was still to be negotiated but the new government has already begun to roll back austerity measures.

Question: Greece 's leaders have received a @placeholder welcome to their reported proposals for a debt deal , ahead of crunch talks with EU creditors .


The phrase "Penny for Scotland" is, of course, most commonly attached to the proposal by the SNP at the Holyrood elections in 1999 to reverse, for Scotland alone, a cut in income tax announced by the then Labour Chancellor. It was evinced by John Swinney - then and now the head SNP honcho on the topic of tax. Mr Swinney later dropped the plan, arguing that it had been overtaken because Labour had ended up increasing the level of tax paid by people in Scotland. Not, he stressed, because the SNP plan had annoyed voters. Mr Rennie undoubtedly has the Swinney plan in mind with his announcement today. Indeed, he is explicitly challenging the SNP to match his proposal - while stressing that it is different to the Nationalists' former scheme. The Scottish Lib Dem plan, understandably, derives rather from their own party's past. Previously, Paddy Ashdown proposed an increase in UK income tax of one per cent, to be hypothecated to fund education. The policy has also featured in past Scottish Lib Dem discussions. Now Mr Rennie has revived it, founded on a belief - disputed by some - that people in Scotland would be willing to pay more tax if it could be demonstrated that the product would be explicitly devoted to the public good. The Scottish Lib Dem leader says that his plan would raise £475m a year for Scottish education. However, given that schools education is delivered by local authorities, Mr Rennie is not in sole command of such matters - and would not be, even if he were to be elevated to Scottish government office. Despite that, he is adamant that his plan would raise cash for education. Firstly, he notes that substantial elements of the plan would be driven by the Scottish government - such as funding for colleges and the creation of a Pupil Premium, already in place in England, to channel funding to schools which need help to bolster pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. Secondly, he argues that education is the dominant element of council spending - and that local authorities are crying out for cash to improve the system. He believes it would be sensibly spent. Another controversy arises. Would an added tax imposition in Scotland bolster or hinder the economy? Would it be fair and progressive? Crucially, Mr Rennie proposes levying the penny on all rates of income tax right now, from April. He wants to use the Calman powers which permit variation across all bands - without the capacity to differentiate between upper and lower. He will table a Scottish Budget amendment accordingly. Mr Swinney has ruled out such a move on the grounds that it is not "progressive", that it does not permit him to levy an extra charge on upper earners while protecting those on lower incomes. To which Mr Rennie says that one penny, generally, is a "small price" to pay. Further, he notes that those on top incomes will pay far more - and that the lowest earners are protected by measures introduced at a UK level, under Lib Dem prompting, to increase the salary starting point at which income tax kicks in. That means, he says, that no-one will pay more until they are earning £19k or more, that someone on the median income will pay an extra £2.90 a month and that almost half of the additional imposition will fall upon the richest 12%. If Mr Rennie fails to persuade Mr Swinney to incorporate the plan into his budget for implementation right away, the Lib Dems will include the plan in their manifesto for the May elections, with the proviso that they would then be able to revise it in the light of the new Smith Commission tax plans which allow differentiation across the bands. But it's still a tax increase. A tax increase to be paid in Scotland alone. However modulated, however targeted, it's an increase in taxation. Will voters in Scotland favour that? Right now? Will they vote for it in May? Mr Rennie is adamant that the Penny for Education plan was popular in the past - and will be again. Others incline to the view that people are often keen to see productive investment in education, the NHS or whatever - with the unstated proviso that the cost should fall elsewhere. The anecdotal presumption in some quarters is that some voters may be enthusiastic advocates of tax increases until they pick up their pencil in the voting booth. In which respect, this is a political calculation by the Liberal Democrats. Given their predicament post the UK General Election, they know they need to make an impact. An early impact. Hence the early announcement of this plan. They know they need to set themselves apart from their rivals. Hence Mr Rennie's challenge to his opponents today to state their views on his proposals. It adds yet again to the sense that this will be a different devolved election - one where tax is as prominent as spending.

Question: Penny for Scotland , anyone ? Willie Rennie of the Liberal Democrats believes that sufficient voters will say Yes to that @placeholder to allow it to attract the title " popular " .


It was "only by chance" officers were not dealing with a murder inquiry, West Midlands Police said. The 26-year-old woman and child were hit by a silver Vauxhall Vectra as they were crossing Tennyson Road in Wolverhampton at about 6.45pm on Wednesday 2 December. A 27-year-old man has been arrested, the force said. Det Sgt Lisa Tibbitts said the car's front end would have been damaged when the boy "hit the bonnet", causing front end damage. She said officers were looking for a "sporty looking" silver Vectra with tinted windows. "If you work at a garage and have recently had to repair a car matching this description then we want to hear from you," she added. The woman and boy were treated in hospital for minor injuries.

Question: A woman and an 11 - year - old boy who were hit by a car were " deliberately @placeholder at " , police have said .