The Scottish champions' 2-0 home defeat by Barcelona, thanks to Lionel Messi's killer double, means they will finish bottom of Group C. "Getting to this stage is great for us but we want to try and push on as much as we possibly can," he said. "We're disappointed we're not in Europe after Christmas, but we'll be back." The midfielder believes Celtic have made progress under Brendan Rodgers since they began their campaign with a 7-0 hammering by the Spanish champions. "There's been ups and downs but it's just the start of the gaffer's era and we're always improving," said Brown. "We're now looking forward to next season and we need to try and be back in it again. "We didn't have the best start, but we've kicked on after that with good performances though not the best results. "That's what we need to try to do every year now, be in the Champions League season after season." Brown believes he and his team-mates should take a lot of personal gratification from their five Champions League matches this season despite collecting only two points. "There's a bit of frustration but there's a lot of pride as well," he told BBC Scotland. "We played against a top team that has won Champions Leagues and a lot of the team have won a lot with Spain as well. "It was hard. We dug deep and were a little bit unlucky. The penalty was quite soft, but they're top quality players. "The first goal's just exceptional - it's a great ball, it's great movement and it's a great finish." Brown was also keen to defend Moussa Dembele, the club's top scorer who missed a gilt-edged chance to level the match when 1-0 down before Messi's second from the penalty spot killed off the Scottish champions' hopes. "Moussa's scored some great goals for us and has won us games himself to be honest," he added. "Strikers miss chances and strikers score great goals. "He's a great player and he's been fantastic all season. What a signing he is for half a million quid." Celtic eyes will now turn to attempting to win the first major silverware of the Scottish football season when they take on Aberdeen in Sunday's League Cup final. And the Parkhead captain believes a victory for his side would put down a serious marker. "Yeah, I think so," he said. "Especially for the gaffer, it would be huge for him being a Celtic fan, coming to the club and getting us playing as well as we can. "We now need to give something back to him."

Question: Celtic captain Scott Brown insists the team will be back in the Champions League next year after they @placeholder Europe with a game to play .


The "glum and embarrassed" foursome had to be rescued after entering the complex, known as the Box mines, in Hawthorn, Wiltshire. They had entered while playing smash hit smartphone game Pokemon Go, where users search real-life locations for digital creatures. One member called for help when they "miraculously" found a phone signal. The caves cover an area of about 72 sq miles (186 sq km) and were "very intricate with lots of windings and different junctions", Damien Bence, from Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue said. He said the teenagers, aged about 16 and 17, had managed to find their way to an open-air part of the rock, called the Cathedral and call the fire service. Mr Bence said: "The fire service doesn't have a statutory duty to enter underground systems, normally we would call on other experts such as mine rescue. "But in this case there's lots of local experts and guides, and we used one of those. We managed to lower down water and radios so they could communicate with us. "It's [Pokemon] beyond me. I don't quite understand it, it seems to be a bit of a phenomenon at the moment. "They were looking for these Pokemon creatures and surprisingly they didn't find any, but it's obviously leading people into dangerous situations, such as this, and things are likely to escalate if people are going to follow the rules of this game." He advised anyone thinking about going into the Box mines not to, unless they know exactly what they are doing and have a map and an experienced guide with them. Pokemon Go, which has become a global phenomenon, was launched in the UK on Thursday. A smartphone update of the Nintendo Game Boy classic, it encourages players to catch monsters via a combination of GPS and augmented reality. Its popularity has prompted a series of safety warnings and reports of players finding themselves in dangerous situations.

Question: A group of teenage boys who entered an underground cave network to search for Pokemon got @placeholder 100 ft below ground .


Officers mounted a river search and scrambled a helicopter in a bid to find Josh Dinning, from Gateshead, who had not been seen since Monday night. Police were called at 09:15 BST and an initial search found nothing. He was discovered three hours later in a drawer under his bed. He said he had not wanted to go to school. A Northumbria Police spokesman said the force was reviewing the search to find out why the "hidden compartment" had not been checked. His mother, Michelle Dinning, a widow and mother of eight, said she had hoped Josh was already at school when she could not find him. But then the school rang to say he had not arrived, so she called the police. "At that stage it all got very real and I was panicking, thinking the worst could have happened," she said. Word of Josh's disappearance spread and dozens of neighbours joined the search, handing out pictures of him which had been printed off by a library. Ms Dinning said: "I suggested one more look around the house - this time the police lifted the beds. "I bent down and saw the green of Josh's school shirt and burst into tears." Josh said: "I could hear people looking for me and I thought I had better stay quiet because when they found me I would get shouted and bawled at so I just stayed where I was." His brother Scott, 20, said: "It's hard to believe that while all this was going on he was just curled up under his bed."

Question: A nine - year - old boy who @placeholder a police search when his mother awoke to find him missing was discovered hiding under his bed .


Argyle edged a cagey first half and almost scored on 43 minutes as Jimmy Spencer's looped effort hit the woodwork after Graham Carey had broken from midfield. The visitors broke the deadlock soon after the restart when David Fox's free-kick evaded everyone apart from Bradley, who diverted the ball into the top corner. Stevenage equalised just seven minutes later as Henry Cowans' low free-kick found Matthew Godden unmarked and his effort went in off Bradley from six yards. Boro - who have now lost three of their last four league games - were only level for four minutes as Bradley glanced in a header from Carey's free-kick. Stevenage had their chances to equalise during five minutes of injury time, with Jack King and Harry McKirdy going close, but Plymouth saw the game out to remain top of the table by five points. Reports supplied by the Press Association. Match ends, Stevenage 1, Plymouth Argyle 2. Second Half ends, Stevenage 1, Plymouth Argyle 2. Attempt missed. Michael Tonge (Stevenage) right footed shot from outside the box is too high. Attempt saved. Jake Hyde (Stevenage) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Substitution, Plymouth Argyle. David Goodwillie replaces Jordan Slew. Corner,  Plymouth Argyle. Conceded by Jamie Jones. Attempt saved. Connor Smith (Plymouth Argyle) left footed shot from the left side of the box is saved in the top centre of the goal. Substitution, Plymouth Argyle. David Ijaha replaces David Fox. Jake Jervis (Plymouth Argyle) is shown the yellow card. Ben Purrington (Plymouth Argyle) wins a free kick in the attacking half. Foul by Jake Hyde (Stevenage). Attempt saved. Jake Jervis (Plymouth Argyle) right footed shot from the right side of the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Substitution, Stevenage. Michael Tonge replaces Henry Cowans. Attempt missed. James Spencer (Plymouth Argyle) right footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the right. Substitution, Plymouth Argyle. Connor Smith replaces Graham Carey. Kgosi Ntlhe (Stevenage) wins a free kick on the left wing. Foul by Graham Carey (Plymouth Argyle). Fraser Franks (Stevenage) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul. Foul by Fraser Franks (Stevenage). James Spencer (Plymouth Argyle) wins a free kick on the right wing. Attempt missed. Harry McKirdy (Stevenage) right footed shot from the centre of the box is too high following a set piece situation. Jack King (Stevenage) wins a free kick in the attacking half. Foul by Yann Songo'o (Plymouth Argyle). Foul by Henry Cowans (Stevenage). Sonny Bradley (Plymouth Argyle) wins a free kick in the defensive half. Substitution, Stevenage. Jake Hyde replaces Tom Pett. Substitution, Stevenage. Harry McKirdy replaces Andrew Fox. Attempt saved. David Fox (Plymouth Argyle) left footed shot from outside the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Attempt saved. James Spencer (Plymouth Argyle) left footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the bottom right corner. Ben Purrington (Plymouth Argyle) is shown the yellow card. Henry Cowans (Stevenage) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul. Foul by Henry Cowans (Stevenage). Ben Purrington (Plymouth Argyle) wins a free kick in the defensive half. Attempt missed. Fraser Franks (Stevenage) header from the right side of the box is too high following a corner. Corner,  Stevenage. Conceded by Gary Miller. Andrew Fox (Stevenage) wins a free kick in the defensive half. Foul by David Fox (Plymouth Argyle). Corner,  Plymouth Argyle. Conceded by Kgosi Ntlhe. Goal!  Stevenage 1, Plymouth Argyle 2. Sonny Bradley (Plymouth Argyle) header from the centre of the box to the bottom right corner. Assisted by Graham Carey following a set piece situation. Foul by Henry Cowans (Stevenage).

Question: Leaders Plymouth extended their unbeaten run in League Two to 10 games as Sonny Bradley 's double secured victory at @placeholder Stevenage .


German shepherd Finn was stabbed in Stevenage on 5 October. His handler PC Dave Wardell was also injured. Alex Goodwin, of Lutterworth, Leicestershire, was "devastated" when he read about the attack so contacted Finn and PC Wardell via social media. Cards based on his drawing of Finn sold out within a day. Police officer's son Alex is undergoing chemotherapy for Ewing Sarcoma, a type of bone cancer that affects fewer than 30 children in the UK each year. He faces further "complex" surgery at Christmas. He saw the news about Hertfordshire Police dog Finn's injury and continued to follow the story when a petition was started to change the law regarding attacks on police dogs and horses. "He wanted to know why anyone would hurt a police dog," his father PC Jeff Goodwin, a firearms officer with Warwickshire Police, said. Via his father, Alex began tweeting Finn and PC Wardell, exchanging pictures. Then the "Finn's Law" group suggested one could be made into a Christmas card to help raise funds for the boy's future treatment and rehabilitation. The initial run sold out in less than a day, raising hundreds for the "Alexander's Journey" appeal. "Alex said he thought Finn was brave and was a hero," PC Wardell said. "But really, it's Alex who is the brave one. He is an inspiration to me." It is not known whether more cards will be printed, but Alex's father said: "I'm in the doghouse with Alex's grandma. "She couldn't get any of the cards and she's very cross with me." Finn's recovery is continuing and his handler hopes he will be able to return to active duty before the end of the  year.

Question: A police dog stabbed while chasing a @placeholder thief has inspired a charity Christmas card drawn by a nine - year - old boy with cancer .


The owner of Activia yogurt and Evian bottled water reported sales of 20.1bn euros ($26.8bn; ?¡ê17.3bn) in 2012, up 5.4% from a year earlier. But sales in Europe fell 3% following a "severe deterioration" in consumer demand. As a result, Danone has announced a cost-cutting plan. The firm plans to cut about 900 management and administrative positions across 26 European countries. "2013 will be a year of transition, with vigorous development in business in our growth markets and a drive to strengthen operations in Europe," said chairman and chief executive Franck Riboud in a statement. The world's biggest maker of yogurts predicted its profit margins would fall again this year, with a negative trend for demand in Europe and prices of raw materials staying high. Its sales growth in 2012 was at the lower end of its own expectations and behind the 5.9% achieved by its Swiss rival Nestle. The company is heavily exposed to European economies, with about 38% of its sales coming from western Europe. Sales at its Spanish dairy division were particularly weak. The company announced in December that it was preparing a two-year cost-cutting programme to save about 200m euros.

Question: French food and @placeholder company Danone has said it will cut 900 jobs after weakness in southern European economies hit sales .


Media playback is not supported on this device The FA must now decide whether to charge Moyes over those comments, which came following his team's draw against Burnley in the Premier League. Moyes has expressed his "deep regret" for his response after an interview in which he was asked by Sparks if the presence of Sunderland's owner Ellis Short put extra pressure on him. He said "no" but, after the interview, added that Sparks "might get a slap even though you're a woman" and that she should be "careful" next time she visited. The BBC understands that Moyes was also involved in an angry exchange involving another female BBC reporter in December 2012. Moyes, the manager of Everton at the time, is believed to have been unhappy with Jacqui Oatley's questions concerning an on-field incident missed by the referee, involving Marouane Fellaini. The then Everton midfielder headbutted Stoke's Ryan Shawcross and was subsequently banned for three matches by the FA for violent conduct. After asking Moyes on-camera about the matter Oatley then posed two follow-up questions about the incident and the impact of losing Fellaini for a number of games due to a potential ban. Moyes, looking irritated, replied: "Bad enough asking me about the first one never mind asking me another one. I've not seen the other stuff. "It's down to the FA. I've answered your question and you've come back with another one." The interview then ended but Moyes is understood to have angrily confronted Oatley over her questions off-camera, directing expletive-laden remarks towards her. The exchange between Moyes and Oatley was not sexist in nature and it is believed there was no reference to the reporter's gender. Oatley is believed to have complained to Everton's head of communications, who has since left the club, but allegedly failed to receive a call or letter in response. Last week Moyes expressed his "deep regret" for his words to Sparks telling reporters he did not see such behaviour "as being something which is in my character. It is something which is out of character." He also said: "I think you all know my character, you know who I am." A spokesperson for Sunderland declined to comment when contacted. Everton said in a statement: "We are unaware of any complaint. The club would strongly condemn any behaviour by an employee which is threatening or abusive to anyone doing their job." A spokesperson for the BBC said: "This incident took place five years ago and we're looking into what actions were taken at the time."

Question: Sunderland manager David Moyes has @placeholder the Football Association with his written observations after telling BBC reporter Vicki Sparks last month she might " get a slap " .


Administrators from KPMG were called into Ferguson Shipbuilders in Port Glasgow on Friday. Most of the 77-strong workforce were immediately made redundant. Finance Secretary John Swinney told BBC Scotland the "absolute priority" was to "continue the shipyard function at Ferguson's". KPMG has said Ferguson's went bust due to a lack of orders and mounting cash flow pressure. Mr Swinney, who has set up a taskforce to help affected workers, is to visit the yard on Monday. Speaking to the BBC's Sunday Politics Scotland programme, he said there were a "lot of discussions under way" which the administrators were taking forward. And he said "every effort" was being made to ensure shipbuilding survived at Ferguson's. Mr Swinney said: "What I will be doing, and what I have been doing since Friday, is working with our enterprise agencies and with the administrators to try to encourage market interest in taking on ownership of the shipyard and to take it forward as an ongoing shipyard concern." He said the Scottish government had in recent years tendered contracts for two CalMac hybrid ferries with Ferguson's. The finance secretary added: "We intend to continue to have dialogue with any organisation that emerges with Ferguson's about any further orders that may be able to be taken forward." Under EU rules, governments must put contracts for commercial ships out to competitive tender. Labour MP Jim Murphy, the shadow international development secretary, called on the Scottish government to "rule absolutely nothing out" in their efforts to secure a future for commercial shipbuilding on the Clyde. He said: "The problem here is longstanding. I was in Islay the other day and sailed back on CalMac's Finlaggan vessel that was built overseas. "The Loch Seaforth, which is the most recent CalMac vessel, has been partially built in Germany and partially built in Poland. "The question I think for the Scottish government is how those governments and those economies sustain commercial shipbuilding in a way that, over the past five years in particular, it seems to have slipped away in Scotland." KPMG said on Friday that the Ferguson yard had "experienced significant cash flow pressure in recent months" and a "lack of financial strength" had effectively "hindered its ability to secure new vessel contracts from its core customer base". Recent attempts to secure investment into the business have proved unsuccessful, the administrators said. The GMB union has said workers were "shocked" by Friday's developments, and called on the Scottish government to intervene.

Question: The Scottish finance secretary has said he has not given up hope of the last commercial shipyard on the River Clyde being @placeholder .


The first detainees arrived at Camp X-Ray 15 years ago in the early months of what was then called the "War on Terror". I first visited a few weeks later and watched the men in orange jumpsuits in steel cages in the hot Cuban sun. Guantanamo had been chosen partly because it was not US soil and so avoided coming under regular US law. The camp then had a thrown together feel - the Bush administration was improvising and no-one was sure how long it would last. The next time I visited - two years later - Camp X-Ray had been replaced by the more permanent structure of Camp Delta. Guantanamo was here to stay. Its numbers grew - around 700 at its peak. But on his second day in office eight years ago President Obama promised to close the facility and the pace of transfers increased. On my visit a few weeks ago, I found much of the Camp eerily empty, a lone iguana roaming around the barbed wire. But closing Guantanamo was a promise President Obama could not keep, partly because Congress blocked the transfer of any detainees to the US. Fewer than 60 men are now left. There are 20 currently cleared for release and the Obama administration is trying to transfer some of these out before its term ends. But on 3 January, President-elect Trump made his views clear in a tweet. "There should be no further releases," he wrote. "These are extremely dangerous people and should not be allowed back on to the battlefield." Most of the remaining detainees are held now in Camp Six. The uncertainty hanging over the base was clear as we toured the detention block. We were able to watch and film detainees in the communal areas of their cell block through one-way glass, an unsettling procedure. The detainees are not supposed to know we are there but clearly they realised as one put up a hand-painted sign showing a question mark with a padlock underneath. They followed the election result like everyone else and Col Steve Gabavics, Commander of the Joint Detention Force, told me: "They were all watching TV - their behaviour was pretty much the same as any other night. "We didn't notice any significant negative response. No-one came to us angry, no-one protested. They were simply interested to see what was going to happen." One difference from my early visits is just how much more controlled - even mundane - the interaction between detainees and guards is now compared to the early days. The attacks of 2001 were still raw and there was a tension and sense of underlying aggression on both sides. Now, the atmosphere is much more controlled. Detainees tap on a window to summon a guard when they have a message to pass and the guard proceeds through a door into a cage-like structure inside the cell-block where they can communicate with a detainee. During our visit in December, officials say that the detainees were "compliant". But what does the arrival of President Trump mean? "You know the detainees have questions - are the transfers going to stop when the new president takes office on 20 January? We don't know, they don't know. Their lawyers may speculate, but no-one knows," says Rear Adm Peter Clarke, commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo. He did say - before Donald Trump's latest tweet - that "some of them may act up" if they realise they are not going to be transferred. Somewhere else on the base, which sprawls across an otherwise isolated tip of Cuba, is Camp Seven. Its precise location is secret - leading to much speculation from visiting reporters. This is where so-called high value detainees are being held - men like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 11 September attacks who is going through the long slow process of a military commission - a form of trial. Might it be not only that transfers out are stopped, but that current detainees find they have some company? "We are going to load it up with bad dudes," Mr Trump said in the campaign trail in February last year. Camp Five was built to hold detainees but now sits empty. What if President Trump decides he wants to not just stop people leaving but send in new detainees? The maximum capacity of Camp Six is around 175 detainees. Camp Five could hold 80 - it has been part-converted to a new medical facility. That means potentially Guantanamo could accommodate more than 100 extra detainees pretty much immediately. More than that would require construction work. Officials say it is a "reasonable assumption" that they would want to segregate new detainees who would be more likely to be members of so-called Islamic State rather than al-Qaeda. "We are prepared to receive some if that was required in the short term," Col Gabavics told us. The Obama administration's push to close Guantanamo also meant there was a reluctance to capture more detainees in counter-terrorism operations around the world, some former officials say. They believe that a policy of "take no prisoners" created an incentive to kill rather than capture, with the administration increasing the pace and the geographical spread of drone strikes which - on occasion - might mean useful intelligence gleaned from interrogation or captured material might be lost. Mr Trump has also said that he would consider returning to the practice of waterboarding detainees. Could that take place at Guantanamo? Rear Adm Clarke said he was "confident" that there will be no torture at Guantanamo. "Whatever orders we receive, by the time they come to me from US Southern Command, I am confident those orders will be legal orders that I will be ready to carry out," he said. In the 15 years since Guantanamo was opened, the contours of America's war on terror have changed. New enemies have emerged and the question of what to do with those America is fighting - where to put them, how to treat them and even whether to kill or capture them - will now be for a new president to decide.

Question: These are uncertain times at Guantanamo Bay . Not only for the detainees but also those who guard them . After eight years in which President Obama has tried - and failed - to close the detention facility , what will President Trump mean for its @placeholder ?


The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said firms simply had to tell investors which social media providers they will use. It comes after the SEC investigated comments made on Facebook last year by the boss of video service Netflix. Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings had commented on the firm's growth. On his personal Facebook page last July, Mr Hastings announced that the company had reached the milestone of its users watching one billion hours of streamed films and TV programmes. The SEC said in its ruling: "We do not wish to inhibit the content, form or forum of any such disclosure, and we are mindful of placing additional compliance burdens on issuers. "In fact, we encourage companies to seek out new forms of communication to better connect with shareholders." Under the changes to the SEC's Regulation Fair Disclosure rules, firms will have to note on their websites and press releases that they will use social media to make future announcements, to ensure that all shareholders are made aware. "One set of shareholders should not be able to get a jump on other shareholders just because the company is selectively disclosing important information," said George Canellos, acting director of the SEC's enforcement division. "Most social media are perfectly suitable methods for communicating with investors, but not if the access is restricted or if investors don't know that's where they need to turn to get the latest news." Howard Lindzon, the founder of Stockwits, a firm that collates Twitter posts about company shares, welcomed the SEC's announcement. "The industry is changing, and it was a matter of time before it was going to be regulated," he told Reuters.

Question: US - @placeholder companies can now use Twitter and other social media services to make key announcements , the country 's financial regulator has ruled .


The suspect, reportedly a 13-year-old boy, has been arrested but may not face charges because of his age. The teacher killed was protecting a colleague during the incident at the Instituto Joan Fuster, reports say. Four other people were wounded. Police have not confirmed the weapon used and there is no indication of his motive. The boy was said to have arrived late for a class on Monday morning and wounded a Spanish language teacher and her daughter, who was also a student. Hearing screams, a male teacher covering as a substitute for a colleague entered the classroom and was fatally wounded when the boy attacked him. A police spokesman could not confirm whether he had been fatally wounded by the boy's knife or his makeshift crossbow. The man had only begun working at the school in recent weeks. Students at the school said the crossbow had been fashioned out of wood and ballpoint pens and that the boy had thrown it into a rubbish bin before running off. According to Spanish media, the pupil had spoken of killing all his teachers last week, and had a list of 25 names, but his schoolmates had dismissed his comments as a joke. Spain's ANPE teachers union says it is the first documented case of a pupil killing a teacher in the country. If the attacker is confirmed as a 13-year-old, he would not face charges as the age of criminal responsibility in Spain is 14. The Mayor of Barcelona, Xavier Trias, tweeted that he was appalled by the incident and has pledged his support for those affected. The four people wounded in the attack, two teachers and two teenagers, were not badly hurt.

Question: A teacher at a school in the Spanish city of Barcelona has been killed by a pupil armed with a @placeholder - made crossbow and a knife .


French President Francois Hollande expressed "deep sadness" at the death of Huguette Dupeu in a statement. Most of the dead in the raid were foreign tourists. Two of the attackers were killed by security forces. A huge march against terrorism is planned for Sunday that will finish outside the Bardo museum. President Hollande is among those expected at the event in the capital Tunis. Lyse Doucet: Tunisia's test of transition Cradle of 'Arab Spring' under threat The museum's planned reopening earlier this week was postponed over security concerns. Schoolchildren and students were allowed in on Friday, with the general public to be readmitted Monday. The attack, claimed by Islamic State (IS), was the deadliest in Tunisia since the uprising which led to the overthrow of long-serving ruler  Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011. Over 20 people have been arrested in connection with the attack, although just two gunmen are thought to have carried out the raid. They are said to have been trained in Libya in an area controlled by IS. The Tunisian Prime Minister, Habib Essid, has admitted "shortcomings" in the country's security system and has dismissed six police chiefs over the attack.

Question: A Frenchwoman injured in the attack on Tunisia 's national museum has died of her wounds , bringing the @placeholder killed in the assault by Islamists to 22 .


Voters in Bassetlaw District Council take to the polls to elect a third of the north Nottinghamshire authority. Labour currently has an overwhelming majority on the council but admitted its biggest fear is UKIP. The Conservative group is hoping to increase its share and go someway to returning to its only period in power. The Lib Dems have six candidates. Labour has controlled the council for decades apart from two brief periods in the 1970s and then again about eight years ago. The area of Bassetlaw is divided in two by the A1 with the Labour heartland of Worksop to the west and the more Conservative Retford to the east. Despite being in Nottinghamshire economically it looks to its large neighbour in Sheffield, rather than the distant county town of Nottingham. It prides itself on being the birthplace of the United States of America - three of the first four signatories to the Mayflower Compact were from Bassetlaw. Labour's John Mann has been MP for Bassetlaw since 2001. That was towards the end of Tony Blair's leadership when the party was unpopular nationally, even in the former coal-mining heartland of Bassetlaw. The Conservatives enjoyed several years in power but in 2011 the council returned to red and this is the first election where it faces a serious challenge from UKIP. "Our biggest worry is UKIP," councillor Griff Wynne said. "This is the first time they have entered candidates in every ward. "They are targeting Labour seats for the first time and they are an unknown quantity." Mr Wynne, deputy leader of the council, said the main issue though is to convince people to vote at all. Former leader of the council and the Conservatives Mike Quigley is hoping to win back a seat after he lost two years ago. "The problem with local politics is that people tend to be driven on what's happening nationally," he said. "We took control when Labour was doing pretty badly nationally and I think that's often how people vote." UKIP is hoping to capitalise on the party's popularity nationally and is the only party to field a candidate in every ward, hoping to build support for future European elections. Roger Vernon said: "We did quite well in the county council elections last year, which isn't bad considering we [the local branch] were only formed in March. "We are up against a strongly entrenched Labour party, we realise it is a hard race for us to row." The Liberal Democrats have not had a councillor in Bassetlaw for more than 10 years. A total of 54 candidates are fighting for 16 seats including two independents.

Question: A @placeholder - in the wool Labour council is facing UKIP in every ward for the first time in Thursday 's election .


The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.05% at 17,535.32. The tech-focused Nasdaq was down 0.41% at 4,717.68 while the S&P 500 was down 0.85% at 2,046.61. Overall retail sales were up by 1.3% on the month, the best since March 2015, but individual companies Nordstrom and JC Penney, followed Macy's earlier this week with lower-than-expected sales. Shares in Nordstrom closed down 13.42%  and J C Penney dropped 2.82% on the news that sales were down. US Department stores have lost out as shoppers have spent on more expensive items including electronics, household goods and cars.

Question: ( Close ) : US shares closed down on Friday despite a positive @placeholder of official retail sales figures .


Piers Brown, from The Christmas Decorators, which installs festive lights and decorations, credits the 1990 Christmas movie Home Alone, starring Macaulay Culkin, for the explosion in external lighting. "Christmas is very deep-set in American culture and as our cultures are becoming more and more alike, it is a tradition which has crossed the Atlantic," he said. In Dorset, where he is based, he said residents tended to opt for "simple, clean, crisp" lighting. "People who retreat to the countryside at Christmas want to get away from the bright lights of the city," he said. However, if the displays are created for children, he said they tended to be more fun. "We've had a three metre-high snowman on a garage and reindeers in the shrubbery," Mr Brown added. He also said sequencing flashing lights to music was growing in popularity across the country, as technology advanced. Although the firm has decked the homes of celebrities, including Mariah Carey and Coleen Rooney, adorning your home for Christmas does not have to be expensive. "Less is more - even something as simple as a wreath and garlands around the door," Mr Brown said. One group of residents who joined the trend for lighting up their entire street 15 years ago has now pulled the plug, after being "subjected to an increasing level of criticism" and red tape. In 2013, police were called after hundreds of people turned up and clogged the streets near Greyhound Close in Hedge End, Hampshire. Eastleigh Borough Council said it also received a number of complaints last year from neighbouring residents and councillors. And so it was lights-out after residents said they were not prepared for taxpayers to foot a traffic management plan bill, including signage and marshals, which "escalated to a mind-blowing ¡ê19,500". The display had raised tens of thousands of pounds for children's charities over the years. Elsewhere, a house in Melksham, Wiltshire, has remained in the dark this year after the man who usually adorns it was put off by the media attention this attracted. Alex Goodhind's display started in 1995, and over that time had cost him about ¡ê20,000. In recent years, 180,000 bulbs were used, along with 600m (2,000ft) of cable and 2,000 cable ties. The display was so well-known B&Q used an image of it on an advert, albeit without permission. Meanwhile, Kevin and Wendy Sheldon have admitted to "cutting back" and reusing old decorations, including a 90-year-old fairy tree-topper that belonged to their grandmother. However, the brother and sister, from Nottingham, who started their display more than 20 years ago, claim they would "get told off" by local residents if they decided to stop the show altogether. "We've got a glowing Santa, another Santa climbing up a ladder, Santa on a see-saw, Santa in a hot-air balloon - you name it, we've got it," said Ms Sheldon. One self-confessed scrooge from Lancashire, who refuses to have a Christmas tree inside his house, has, however, been lighting up the outside for the past 18 years like the Blackpool illuminations - quite literally. "I bought some some old Blackpool illuminations for the display - big Holland's Pies vans," said Ian Clifton. What started out as "a few strings of lights" has since turned his home in Lincoln Close into "an institution", he added. However, this year Storm Desmond threatened to ruin the show after causing a week-long power blackout. Mr Clifton said he had always had a fairy light "fascination", but bizarrely added: "I don't like Christmas." "There's nowt in the house at all - when I shut the door them lights are outside." Despite that, he spends several weeks erecting the display, as well as dealing with "absolutely miles of cabling". It costs him an extra ¡ê300 in electricity over Christmas but he says he has raised ¡ê57,000 for charity. Perhaps surprisingly though, over the festive period as a nation we actually use less electricity as a nation, the National Grid said. With factories, shops and offices closed on Christmas Day there is a significant drop compared to a normal winter's day. Also, modern LED lights make illuminating a house less costly. Forecasters, who spend 11 weeks planning our Christmas electricity usage, are predicting a demand of about 35,410 MW - enough to light up 3.5 billion Christmas trees. "Demand rises steadily as people wake up and begin turning on their ovens to cook their turkeys, and reaches a peak around lunchtime," said forecasting manager Jeremy Caplin. As well as past trends his team looks at weather forecasts and television listings. Mr Caplin said the biggest Christmas Day "pick-up" - a surge in electricity use - followed an episode of Only Fools and Horses in 1996. This year the team is predicting the last ever Downton Abbey to receive the biggest surge. For the likes of Wendy Sheldon, Christmas planning will start again in the January sales where she'll pick up some bargains for next year's display. "The kiddies in the street start asking, 'are you putting you're lights up yet?' and I say, 'no, it's only July'," she said.

Question: Every year for the past two decades Lee and Paul Brailsford have been adorning their mother 's home with Christmas lights and decorations . However , their 50,000 - light extravaganza seems to be bucking the national trend , with council bureaucracy , electricity bills and even Storm Desmond appearing to have taken the shine off other domestic displays . BBC News shines a light on the @placeholder of festive home illumination .


Back in the early 1990s, when I was on my way to join the first British troops despatched for peace-keeping duties to Bosnia, I stayed overnight at a Vienna hotel. In the lobby, there was a series of 19th Century maps of the Hapsburg Empire. There they were, all of the old names - Bosnia Herzegovina, the Croat lands - names, long consigned to the history books, that were now the currency of nightly news reports, marking out the boundaries of this latest tragedy in the Balkans. Later, standing in Sarajevo's old Turkish market, one had the clear sense of being in a historic border zone; a frontier between Europe and the old Ottoman lands to the east. It was a reminder that for much of the 19th Century, Western diplomacy had been obsessed with what became known as "the Eastern Question." This was the fear as to what might happen as the Ottoman Empire - then seen as "the sick man of Europe" - slowly relinquished its grip on its various possessions. Who might step into the breach? One obvious concern was Russia. Britain and France had already fought one campaign to bolster Turkey and limit Russia's influence in the Holy Land - the Crimean War of the 1850s. Do you see a pattern here? Again those familiar names and themes; the Crimea; Russian influence in the Middle East. Times change - but geography doesn't, and strategic interests have as much to do with geography as they do with anything else. Thus, Europe now faces what might be called "a new Eastern Question". It is not so much Turkey's weakness that is the problem today; it is maybe more a question of Ankara's over-reach. Turkey has seemingly achieved the impossible. I remember some years ago interviewing the then Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. Bookish, a former professor, he was the proud architect of Turkey's new foreign policy, one of zero problems with any of its neighbours. Now, Mr Davutoglu is Prime Minister. And in the intervening years, Turkey seems instead to have developed problems with almost all of its neighbours and erstwhile regional partners; be it Syria, Israel, and now, crucially, Russia. Moscow and Ankara find themselves on different sides in the Syrian crisis; Moscow backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government, and Turkey in the vanguard of those countries most eager to see his departure. A kind of proxy war has turned hot, with Russia bombing Syrian opposition groups backed by Turkey and encouraging Kurdish forces to press ever closer to the Turkish frontier. Turkey's shooting down of a Russian warplane last November - a plane that on best evidence had only briefly intruded into Turkish airspace - worsened the tensions. More recently, the Russian-backed Syrian offensive on Aleppo has sent new waves of refugees heading for the Turkish border and worsened Ankara's fears about Kurdish success. This "new Eastern Question" impinges upon Western Europe in two crucial ways. First, Turkey is a member of Nato. If it gets itself into a spat with the Russians, this could have dramatic consequences for the alliance as a whole. It was noticeable at the tail-end of last year that the Nato allies' very public support for Turkey in the wake of the shooting down of the Russian Sukhoi jet, was tempered, at least in private,  by a good degree of amazement and concern that Turkey had chosen to behave so rashly. But there is another security dimension too, and that relates to the great wave of refugees, asylum seekers, call them what you will, that are battering on Europe's doors. They, of course come not just from Syria. But the crisis there and the terrible dislocation that it has produced is an important driving factor. Turkey is a conduit for some of this population movement, and this means that the EU must measure its relations with Ankara cautiously. The implicit threat is there. If the Europeans do not help Turkey with this problem, then Ankara could simply open the gates and send a reinforced human wave westwards. This could be one reason why western Europe has been largely mute in the face of the Turkish military's onslaught against its own Kurdish areas. And it may also be why Turkey's self-serving involvement in Syria has similarly been so little criticised. Apart from opening some of its air bases to help with the US-led air campaign, Turkey has acted in large part to deal with what it sees as a strategic threat from the Kurds, rather than weighing-in against the so-called Islamic State. Turkey is doing pretty much everything it can to upset Moscow. Just a few days ago, Mr Davutoglu visited the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, to discuss "strategic cooperation" between Turkey and Ukraine. But bolder Turkish threats to intervene on the ground in Syria - a step that might put them in direct confrontation with the Russians - seem to be just that, threats, at least for now. Few analysts are giving much hope to the forthcoming "ceasefire" in Syria, seemingly brokered by the US and the Russians. The hope must be that at a minimum it may allow an opportunity for aid to reach some embattled areas. But if the fighting does continue; if the Syrian government and its allies continue to gain ground, Turkey may well get to a point where it feels it has to act. The "new Eastern Question" may be delayed, but it isn't going to go away.

Question: History has a strange way of imposing itself upon the @placeholder .


The Forestry Commission scheme at Latchmore Brook aimed to recreate the meanders of a stream which had been diverted by Victorian engineers. But campaigners claimed the work would cause "irreparable damage". The commission said the scheme's sponsor, the New Forest Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) Scheme, had decided not to challenge the planning decision. It said the HLS board had opted instead to focus funding on monitoring the brook, near Hyde, and on other projects within the forest. A spokeswoman said the Forestry Commission was now revising its work programme. She said: "We will continue to monitor Latchmore Brook, to measure changes during the remaining period of the HLS agreement because it's vital that will build knowledge of the changes at the site and use that to inform future management. "We understand and respect the decision taken by the HLS Board not to appeal the decision and to focus their future funding on a range of projects that will build on the success of completed conservation and restoration work across the New Forest." New Forest National Park Authority refused planning permission for the scheme in November, amid strong local opposition, despite it having the backing of the Environment Agency, Natural England and Historic England. Residents argued the 96,000 tonnes of gravel needed for the restoration would spell "ecological disaster" for the area. Following the refusal, the Forestry Commission said the "threatened area" now risked "falling into further decline".

Question: Controversial plans to restore @placeholder in the New Forest have been shelved after they were refused by planners .


Northern Ireland international Little was released by Preston North End at the end of last season, having left Ibrox for Deepdale in 2014. "I'm living in Glasgow and that's where I want to be," Little, 27, told BBC Radio Scotland. "I've made a life decision more than a football decision. I've spoken to a few clubs in the last couple of weeks." Former Ibrox youth player Little, who has nine international caps and 117 club appearances, moved south after helping Rangers win successive promotions up to the Scottish Championship. Preston were promoted to England's Championship via the play-offs in Little's first season at North End and loan spells at Blackpool and Accrington Stanley followed but injuries affected his playing chances, with his last appearance coming in January 2016. "It doesn't feel like it's been that long because I actually have been fit for the majority of that time," explained Little, who can also play at right-back. "Fit [in] training isn't the same as fit [in] games. I need to play games. "I went into Partick Thistle for about two months [for training] but still had little injuries and never really felt like I was probably ready to play in the Scottish Premiership. Alan Archibald was brilliant with me, a great manager. "The decision I've made now is to come back here and to probably play part-time. "There's two part-time clubs in the Scottish Championship and barring two in League One, the rest of the clubs in League One and League Two in Scotland are part-time. "There's 16 or so games left in the season and I need to play in as many of those as I can to enable me then to look to next season."

Question: Former Rangers forward Andrew Little is targeting a return to Scottish football after @placeholder to Glasgow .


The seven include Frank Sweeney, the former chair of the party's constituency council. Mr Sweeney said there had been a breakdown in trust within the SDLP in West Tyrone. In a statement, the SDLP said it had experienced "tremendous growth" in the constituency in recent years. It said Mr McCrossan "and his team in West Tyrone have the full support and confidence of the SDLP". However, Mr Sweeney said the party leadership had failed to address concerns raised by him and others. "We've been trying for two years to get the party centrally to intervene and to take action to remedy things," he said. "Nothing has happened and people feel like they can take no more." The others who have quit the party are: The latest resignations come a week after three councillors quit the party - two of whom, Patsy Kelly and Josephine Deehan, are standing against their former party in next month's election. On Friday, the party said: "Josephine Deehan refused to engage in the selection process on the two occasions when the party held selection conventions - first to replace Joe Byrne in the assembly and secondly to stand for election. "Daniel McCrossan was the only person to put his name forward and was therefore was unanimously selected by more than 100 party members." Michaela Boyle, Sinn F¨¦in Allan Bresland, DUP Barry Brown, Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol Thomas Buchanan, DUP Josephine Deehan, Independent Stephen Donnelly, Alliance Party Corey French, Independent Ross Hussey, UUP Patsy Kelly, Independent Roger Lomas, Conservative Declan McAleer, Sinn F¨¦in Laura McAnea, Animal Welfare Party Sorcha McAnespy, Independent Ciaran McClean, Green Party Daniel McCrossan, SDLP Grace McDermott, Sinn F¨¦in Barry McElduff, Sinn F¨¦in Susan-Anne White, Independent

Question: Seven @placeholder - holders have quit the SDLP in West Tyrone , as the row over Daniel McCrossan 's nomination in the assembly election continues .


The exhibition features pictures of the city posted on photo-sharing site Instagram and is the first display of its kind at the Ikon Gallery. Themes include architectural heritage, hidden spaces, urban street art, evolving landscape, art and culture. The More Birmingham Instagram Showcase runs until Sunday. The exhibition celebrates a successful series of 'Instameet' social media events that have taken place throughout 2015. The events captured key milestones, from the opening of the revamped New Street Station to the redevelopment of Paradise Circus, key cultural celebrations such as the Big Hoot and the Birmingham Weekender. The thousands of images produced have generated more than one million hits across social media throughout the year. Emma Gray, director of marketing and communications at Visit Birmingham, said: "Birmingham's Instameet events have created an online photographic legacy, with thousands of remarkable images generated and shared amongst potential visitors across the world." The exhibition comprises a mixture of print and projected photography, complimented by a virtual gallery accessible online.

Question: Hundreds of social media photos capturing hidden @placeholder of Birmingham have gone on display to celebrate a landmark year in the city .


But other families have not found their "disappeared" loved ones and the cash to help them is running out. In 1980 Margaret McKinney received a Christmas card signed with the name of her son, Brian. But she knew Brian was dead. She had known for two years. Brian's nickname was "Bru" - Belfast humour, a comment on his tiny stature compared to his namesake, the towering ancient King of Munster, Brian Boru. Brian had a learning disability and, according to his sister Lynda, would have been described as having special needs if assessed today. But that and his happy, youthful enthusiasm were not enough to stop the IRA from walking him to an unmarked grave, forcing him to step into it and shooting him in the back of the head. "I can see him crying out for me," Margaret says. "The coroner said that, when he was shot, the bullet went right through his wee head and deep into the soil. "That is how we know he was alive when he was put in the grave." "I think that's what has tortured Mum most of all," says Lynda, "the fact that he knew he was walking to his grave and that his last thoughts will have been for her and for Daddy." The Disappeared will be broadcast on Wednesday 13 July at 1100 BST on BBC Radio 4 Catch up on iPlayer Who were the 'Disappeared'? Finding the 'Disappeared' For 17 years, they heard nothing - apart from the fake Christmas card. "Part of the way the paramilitaries dealt with this was to put out rumours," says Sandra Peake, of the victims group Wave (Widows Against Violence). "They perpetuated a myth that these people were still alive." Through Wave, Margaret became a thorn in the side of the IRA, as she campaigned relentlessly for the truth about the "disappeared". She took her story to politicians, a prince and eventually a president. During a meeting with Bill Clinton, he promised that he would do his best to find her son. Brian's body was found shortly afterwards. Brian's father died a few years ago but swore that, when his son was recovered from a desolate bog, that he would never return to "that God-forsaken place". Margaret however, returns regularly. "He was harmless, well and truly harmless" she says. "I still wonder who it was that did it." It might be hard to believe but Margaret considers herself one of the lucky ones. Brian now has a grave in Belfast's Miltown cemetery. But seven other families of the "disappeared" are still waiting for their bodies to be found and time is running out. The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains, set up to find their loved ones, looks likely to be wound down. It can only continue as long as there is fresh information for it to go on. According to the Northern Ireland Office which funds it, that phase is coming to an end. Brian McKinney was found because an IRA intermediary spoke to those involved in his disappearance and passed on the details to the commission's investigators. Today the team is led by Geoff Knupfer. He cut his teeth in this line of work searching for the victims of the Moors murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. Finding the victims of the IRA and INLA is no less challenging. "These locations were chosen with consummate care. "They're invariably peat bogs -  anonymous wastelands really - and to expect people to come along 30 or 40 years later and say "x marks the spot" is going to be a tall order. "Often these incidents took place at night and in bad weather, and the individuals have never been back since." Not only have many of the bodies never been found, the families have never been given any proper explanation as to why their loved ones were abducted in the first place. The allegation that some may have been informers does not stand up for the McKinney family because Brian was targeted after he admitted taking part in the robbery of a bar run by the IRA. But they know as well as anyone that alleged informers were made an example of. They were often tortured, hooded, shot in the head and left at the side of a road as a warning to others. Their relatives were literally "disappeared", which suggests their deaths could not have been properly explained to the community from which they came. Margaret does not care why any more. The recovery of her son's body was the most important thing. "I've changed in my bitterness. I even asked a policeman to give me a gun to shoot the people I suspected. "He put his arm round me and said 'Mrs McKinney, we know what you're going through, but it's not the right thing.' Does she still suspect those people? "Yeah, I do, but I honestly don't care any more. I have the grave and the flowers, and there's life there." That is a comfort seven families may never get if the money runs out, and the information really has dried up. Anyone with information that could help the work of the commission is asked to get in touch confidentially on 00800-55585500. The Disappeared will be broadcast on Wednesday 13 July at 1100 BST on BBC Radio 4. It will also be available on the BBC iPlayer.

Question: Margaret McKinney , whose son was murdered and secretly @placeholder by the IRA in the 1970s , considers herself " lucky " because his body has been recovered .


The document drawn up at the peace talks in Havana will give priority to Farc recruits under the age of 15. They will be treated as victims of war and will be pardoned when Colombian law permits it. The accord will extend to all fighters under 18 and the children will be returned to their families if possible. The Farc agreed to help identify the children and organise their departure from their military hideouts. The UN and other agencies are to be invited to oversee the children's reintegration into society. Both sides have not said how many children and adolescents in total still remain in the Farc although the group has said it has 13 soldiers aged under 15 in its ranks. According to the government's child protection agency, around 6,000 children have left armed groups in the last 17 years of which 60% belonged to the Farc. Hoping to sign a peace deal in the coming weeks, the government and Farc agreed to use constitutional means to protect the accord from political interference in the future. Both sides are still negotiating the terms of a permanent ceasefire. They have already signed accords on agrarian reform, the transformation of the Farc into a political party, on justice and the war against drugs and on de-mining and the search for the disappeared.

Question: The Colombian government says it has agreed a road @placeholder for the release of child soldiers from the ranks of the left - wing Farc rebels .


Scientists trained horses, by offering slices of carrot as an incentive, to touch a board with their muzzle to indicate if they wanted to wear a rug. The horses' requests matched the weather, suggesting it wasn't a random choice. A few other animals, including apes and dolphins, appear, like us, to express preferences by pointing at things. Dr Cecilie Mejdell of the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, who led the research, said they wanted to find a way to ask the horse whether or not it liked wearing a blanket. In Nordic countries, it is common for horses to wear a blanket in all weathers. "I think our study adds to the knowledge on horse cognition - about what horses are able to learn and how they think," she told BBC News. "Horses are often considered to be not very intelligent but this shows that using the right methods they can actually communicate and express their opinions and they can take choices that seem sensible to us even." The scientists worked with a horse trainer to teach 23 horses of various breeds how to communicate with humans. Horses requested a blanket in wet, windy and cold weather, but went without when the weather was sunny, say the researchers. This shows the horse was making a choice based on its own motivation, not that of its trainer, they explain. The whole process took place over two weeks with 10 to 15 minutes of training a day. The scientists hope that other researchers will use their method to ask horses more questions. They also think ordinary horse owners will be able to train their horses in this way. Karen McComb, professor of animal behaviour and cognition at the University of Sussex, said the training method would be useful in animal welfare. "This is a really interesting and innovative study that has conceived a very novel way of getting at what is going on in the mind of the horse," she said. While communication with cats and dogs is the subject of much research, other domestic animals have been somewhat ignored. Earlier this year, UK researchers said horses were able to discriminate between happy and angry human facial expressions. The scientists say domestication may have enabled horses to understand human behaviour. The study is published in the journal, Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

Question: Horses have @placeholder a select group of animals that can communicate by pointing at symbols .


The broadcaster has drawn up three options for a new format, but said no decision had yet been taken on which, if any, would be introduced. The BBC said it aimed to deliver "the very best news" for Scottish audiences. But the National of Union of Journalists said there had been no consultation with staff. It is understood that BBC Scotland is to make a series of pilot episodes over the next three weeks before a final decision is taken. The so-called Scottish Six has been a long-running controversy within Scottish broadcasting, with previous proposals being ruled out by the BBC's then-director general Mark Thompson in 2006. The proposals are in response to criticism that the BBC's main Six O'Clock News programme often features stories - for example on education and health - that have no relevance to Scottish audiences. The Scottish government has argued that the BBC needs to "catch up" with devolution, and to give its Scottish operation greater control of budgets, staffing and decision making. The new programme could provide "an hour of UK, Scottish and international news", according to a document drawn up by senior BBC Scotland managers. It would be edited and presented in Scotland, and would aim to "shape the day's news in a way relevant to Scottish audiences". The Scottish news hour would also "use the best of BBC News' talent around the country and the world", the document states. A team of producers would be based at the BBC's New Broadcasting House headquarters in London to ensure key correspondents around the world were available to the Scottish programme. And about 70 new correspondents, producers and other staff could be recruited to work on the programme. The document outlines three possible formats for the programme. The first of these would see an hour-long programme presented entirely in Scotland, while the second would see a main Scottish presenter accompanied by a London-based journalist who would front a 10-minute roundup of UK and international news. In both options, the document stresses that BBC Scotland would have editorial responsibility for the programme. A third option would retain the current structure of the Six O'Clock News followed by a half-hour Reporting Scotland. But the Six would place greater emphasis on explaining how stories differ in different parts of the UK - for example why junior doctors are on strike in England but not Scotland. And Reporting Scotland would be improved through a "new, more rigorous editorial brief, a focus on more analytical specialist journalism, and higher production values". The document said focus groups set up around the country had suggested "participants want local news and news from Scotland, and there was also a strong interest in a UK perspective on UK and international stories, and in 'big news' happening around the UK". It also acknowledged that "support for a Scottish Six was muted" among those taking part in the focus groups, and that "BBC Scotland would have to address perceived quality issues first, and any launch would have to be an immediate success from day one". It said audience research had suggested that some viewers believed Reporting Scotland was of a lower quality than UK-wide news programmes, and that Scottish news was not covered in sufficient depth. But the document stressed that any new hour-long programme would not simply be a longer version of the existing Reporting Scotland. It also said the Audience Council for Scotland had said that more depth and analysis of Scottish news was required, and that the "Scottish Six is a great opportunity which must not be squandered". The proposals were discussed by BBC Scotland journalists at an NUJ meeting on Wednesday, with staff expressing concern that they first learned of the plan when details were published in a newspaper on Monday. There was also anger at the document stating BBC Scotland "has some strong talent but not enough depth of specialism", and that the "ideal" editor of any new programme would have high-level experience of network TV. The NUJ said this implied that many senior Scottish-based journalists would not be considered experienced enough to edit the programme. The union has threatened to put the proposals into dispute unless BBC Scotland director Ken MacQuarrie agrees to a full consultation with staff. BBC Scotland's head of news Gary Smith spoke to staff on Thursday afternoon in an attempt to address the concerns. A BBC Scotland spokesman said: "We've said very publicly that we are conducting a news review at present and we'll be looking at various different programme formats and carrying out audience research as part of that process. "We have told our news teams that we will be carrying out some non-broadcast pilots and we'll obviously talk to staff as we proceed with this work and discuss fully any implications on them. "No decisions on our future output will be taken until that work is concluded, but ultimately our aim is to deliver the very best news for our audiences here in Scotland."

Question: The BBC is to begin trialling a new hour - long news programme that could @placeholder both Reporting Scotland and the Six O'Clock News in Scotland .


The group already operates a five star hotel near the Waterfront Hall. It is thought that it is looking for a site for its budget Hampton by Hilton brand. The Hampton brand has been expanding rapidly across the UK and Europe over the last two years. An industry source suggested the group could be involved with a recently filed planning application for Hope Street. A Hilton spokesman said: "I can confirm that Belfast is a destination which has attracted our interest and we continue to review potential sites to increase our presence in the city. "We are unable to comment further at this stage."

Question: The Hilton Hotel group has said it is looking at @placeholder sites in Belfast with a view to expansion .


Between 2008 and 2012, South Wales Police failed to adequately act on eight reports and three intelligence logs from six people about the former Lostprophets frontman's intentions. Watkins received a 35-year sentence in 2013 for 13 child sex offences. The force accepted the Independent Police Complaints Commission's (IPCC) findings and "serious concern" raised. IPCC Commissioner for Wales Jan Williams said the way the reports were handled was subject to conscious or unconscious bias. "This investigation raised the most disturbing concerns about the way in which reports of Ian Watkins' sickening child abuse were handled between 2008 and 2012," she said. "Watkins' arrest for his depraved activities followed only after an arrest for drugs offences, an added cause for serious concern." The IPCC investigation was launched in 2013 following a referral by South Wales Police. It found the force did not examine the mobile phone of Watkins' ex-girlfriend Joanne Mjadzelics in 2009, which had a message revealing his wish to have sex with children, and provided corroboration to other reports. There was no evidence to show there was a lack of police action because of Watkins' celebrity status, however the belief that Ms Mjadzelics lacked credibility led to adequate steps not being taken to progress reports. Several other individuals also came forward, some through Crimestoppers, with disturbing information about Watkins' behaviour, the IPCC found. But it was the drugs arrest which led to further action. Watkins admitted the child sex offences and was told he must serve at least 29 years in prison. "In my view, all the reports made were subject to a biased response, whether this was conscious or unconscious," Ms Williams added. "Some were conflated with reports made by Ms Mjadzelics and were thus dismissed as lacking credibility. "All those involved in responding accepted the initial sceptical view of Ms Mjadzelics' reports, demonstrating a lack of open-mindedness and professional curiosity. "This continued until 'the right type of complainant came along'." The report did not detail why police felt Ms Mjadzelics was considered to lack credibility or what the "right type of complainant" was. Ms Mjadzelics was cleared in 2015 of child sex abuse image offences. She claimed she had encouraged the singer to send the images in order to expose his criminality. She said the IPCC report "finally vindicates" her and "accepts that from the outset I was telling the truth and trying to bring a serious criminal sexual predator to justice". Ms Mjadzelics added: "The IPCC report highlights what I already believed about how South Wales Police treated me and others and whilst I am pleased it is now in the public domain I am seeking legal advice on further action against the police arising from the series of events and my treatment." South Wales Police Assistant Chief Constable Jeremy Vaughan said: "Today's report highlights a number of failings in which information about Watkins was investigated between 2008 and 2012 which the force entirely accepts and regrets. "South Wales Police failed to listen and properly investigate information about Watkins' offending behaviour, for this we are truly sorry." Earlier this year, a detective sergeant was cleared of misconduct over the case and no further action was taken against two detective constables. The IPCC has also previously released findings from investigations into how South Yorkshire Police and Bedfordshire Police handled allegations made to them about Watkins. Wales' Children's Commissioner Sally Holland said: "It is disturbing to think that such a catalogue of basic errors can take place in Wales in the 21st Century, which led to a four-year delay in bringing Watkins to justice. There can be no defence or excuse." NSPCC Cymru said the report's "damning conclusions should be a wake-up call for all those involved".

Question: Police missed a number of @placeholder to bring paedophile Ian Watkins to justice sooner , an investigation has found .


18 May 2015 Last updated at 09:14 BST Horticulturalists from around the world are displaying their designs at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, London. Among the gardens being shown to special guests on Monday is one created for Sentebale. The charity, Sentebale was created by Prince Harry and helps children living in poverty in Lesotho, Africa. The prince said the garden was "everything that I could have wished for". He added that parts of the garden "are exactly like Africa" and that he "can't wait" to show members of his family. Designer Matt Keightley, who created a southern-African theme for the charity, said: "It is such a privilege being part of the show. " I'm hoping the Queen will like it - that would be the icing on the cake," Matt added.

Question: Prince Harry has @placeholder this year 's Chelsea Flower Show and the Queen due to visit later .


Norwegian historian Torgeir Higraff, 42, and a crew of 13 people have just left the Peruvian port of Callao and embarked on one such adventure. He wants to cross the Pacific Ocean from Peru to Easter Island, at the eastern tip of Polynesia - and then back. This Kon-Tiki expedition goes further than two previous trips. The crew will aim to complete a 5,500Nm (10,000km, 6,200-mile) round trip, despite most naval experts saying it is impossible. Especially when you are travelling in two wooden rafts that are each 17m long, 7m wide and 40cm deep (56ft x 23ft x 1ft 4in). On their way to Easter Island, or Rapa-Nui, they will follow the gentle currents and winds of the ocean. But on the way back, "we will be sailing in rough waters", says Higraff. The winds at sea can easily reach speeds of 20 metres per second, with waves as high as 10m (30ft), he says. This makes fishing almost impossible, explains Pal Borresen, CEO of the expedition. So they are carrying plenty of dry food. And high hopes. Each raft will carry: When Higraff's fellow Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl, considered one of the great adventurers of the 20th Century, made the first voyage in 1947, it was also against the odds. Almost 70 years ago, nobody thought it possible to travel by raft from Peru to Polynesia. The academic world was particularly dismissive of the suggestion. Ancient Peruvians, they thought, did not have the knowledge to do it. Heyerdahl proved them wrong. In 2006 Higraff led his own expedition, on the Tangaroa raft. At the time, experts said he would not go any faster than Heyerdahl did in 1947 because the rafts were just following winds and currents. Higraff and the Tangaroa broke Heyerdahl's record by 30 days. The rafts are made of balsa wood, a tree species lighter than cork and native to the Americas. Balsa takes about five years to reach its full height of 20m to 25m. For this trip Higraff chose the 44 trees he needed and shipped them from Ecuador - which has 90% of the world's balsa supply - to Callao, where a team of 30 people built the rafts in three weeks. As a historian, Higraff had read the Spanish chroniclers who wrote about the seafaring activities of Inca emperor Tupac Yupanqui (ca. 1440-1490), who is believed to have visited Mangareva and Easter islands in the 15th Century. "They did have the technology," he says. And he believes that regular ties had existed between South America and Polynesia for hundreds of years before the arrival of the Europeans. "This will be the first time in the modern era that a round trip will be made." "The oceans are changing very fast and nobody is paying attention," says Dr Cecilie Mauritzen, an oceanographer who is the expedition's chief scientist. "This is a chance to give oceans a voice." Dr Mauritzen's work on the trip will focus on climate change, pollution from microplastics and the impact of the El Nino weather effect. "The seas are also becoming more acidic, warmer and getting less oxygen," she explains. If oceans take 90% of the extra heat that humans produce, "they are protecting us for the time being - but for how much longer?" To help the scientific work, the rafts have been fitted with top-notch transponders, beacons and satellite communications, courtesy of Norwegian technology companies. Of the 14 people making the crossing, only two have sailed in similar rafts before. Many of them have not even sailed at all. "But each has been carefully chosen for their skills, and we have also taken gender and age into account", expedition CEO Pal Borresen says. The crew are between 19 and 64 years old. That makes for a very diverse group but not necessarily an experienced one. One of the biggest challenges during a trip like this is how to bind the group and keep spirits up. "I have to be there for them and make them perform at their best," Torgeir Higraff says. He reckons there will be moments of anxiety and fear, but believes he will be able to deal with those. What is less predictable are accidents. There will be a Russian doctor on board. If something worse should happen, the Peruvian and Chilean navies will be following them closely from the coast and a Norwegian rescue centre will keep track via satellite. But aside from these contingencies, Torgeir Higraff is sailing with one thing in mind. To prove to the world that a round trip is possible, on a raft and with 15th Century technology. You can follow the expedition's progress on its website.

Question: This is a story about @placeholder , science and exploration . But it is also one about a struggle against the odds , just as it was on the first voyage back in 1947 .


Stephen Gethins, who sits on the Westminster committee, said a long-term solution was needed in the Syrian conflict. The US shot 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles against a Syrian airbase in response to a suspected chemical weapons attack. The UK government has called the action "an appropriate response". A Downing Street spokesman said: "Overnight, the US has taken military action against the Syrian regime, targeting the airfield in Shayrat which was used to launch the chemical weapons attack earlier this week. "The UK government fully supports the US action, which we believe was an appropriate response to the barbaric chemical weapons attack launched by the Syrian regime, and is intended to deter further attacks." Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme, Mr Gethins said: "The Assad regime is beyond the pale. "Chemical attacks on their own people becomes utterly beyond the pale but I think what you need to do, more than anything else, is bring an end to this conflict." The SNP has voted against the UK taking military action against Syria. However, Mr Gethins added: "If any military action depreciates his ability to conduct chemical actions then, of course, it's a good thing if that can be stopped, but we don't know that yet. "We've got a situation in Syria where 11.5 million people have been displaced. You've got Turkish troops on the ground, Russian troops on the ground, even some US troops on the ground. "It's a multi-polar civil war and we badly need a long-term solution, but anything that undermines Assad's ability to conduct chemical warfare of course would be welcomed but we don't know if these military strikes have done that." The party's spokesman on foreign affairs, Alex Salmond, added that the airstrikes were "no substitute for policy". He said: "Such strikes should take place only after detailed examination and assessment of the storage facility and the delivery mechanism. "They should also be part of a collective effort to place the use of chemical weapons and nerve agents beyond the pale of conflict and crucially they should also be part of a considered strategy to bring this ruinous multi-layered Syrian civil war to an end." The airstrikes mark the first direct US military action against forces commanded by Syria's president. Labour's only MP in Scotland, Ian Murray, who also sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said some action to degrade chemical weapon attacks was "appropriate". He said: "The capability of launching such a chemical attack on the Syrian people, as we've seen this week, can only have come from the Syrian regime. "This is fundamentally against international law. The UN is paralysed by the self-interest of Russia so some focused action to degrade the Assad regime's ability to launch chemical weapons attacks against innocent civilians, including many children, is appropriate. "However, the events of the last few days show, more than ever, that a lasting, credible and independent peace process must be properly established with clear goals and staging points. Otherwise, this dreadful situation for the Syrian people will never end." The Kremlin, which backs Bashar al-Assad, has condemned the strike. The attack, at 04:40 Syrian time (01:40 GMT), comes just days after dozens of civilians, including many children, died in the suspected nerve gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province. President Trump branded Assad a "dictator" who had "launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians". The US president said he had acted in America's "vital national security interest" to prevent the use of chemical weapons. "Tonight I call on all civilised nations to join us in seeking to end this slaughter and bloodshed in Syria and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types," he said. President Trump's statement in full The Pentagon said the Russian military, which supports Syrian government forces, had been informed ahead of the US action. In a statement it said missiles fired from Navy destroyers USS Porter and USS Ross had targeted aircraft, aircraft shelters, storage areas, ammunition supply bunkers, air defence systems, and radars at Shayrat airfield in western Homs province. The Pentagon added that the strike was intended "to deter the regime from using chemical weapons again". A statement on Syrian state TV said "American aggression" had targeted a Syrian military base with "a number of missiles". The UN Security Council will hold further talks on Friday as it tries to agree a resolution calling for an investigation into the deaths in Khan Sheikhoun.

Question: The SNP 's MP on the foreign affairs select committee has called the Assad regime " beyond the pale " but @placeholder short of backing US airstrikes .


Each December, meteors appear to radiate from a point near the star Castor, in the constellation Gemini. In early morning hours, that is located westward and overhead in the northern hemisphere and nearer the horizon in the southern hemisphere. Many sky watchers saw dozens of "shooting stars" per hour, made easier to see by darkness provided by the "new moon" phase of the lunar cycle. The shower comes about each year as the Earth passes through the path of an asteroid called 3200 Phaethon. The asteroid leaves behind a trail of rocky debris that the Earth ploughs into - debris moving at 35km per second through the atmosphere, burning up in what have been described as spectacular displays. "The sky was completely clear here," reported Ivan Hawick in the Shetland Islands. "I could see eight meteors in one minute at times. One I saw was burning so bright - it was a lovely blue colour." According to the International Meteor Organization, the "radiant" - the apparent point from which the meteors seem to come - was visible from sunset in far north of the equator; the constellation rose above the horizon at about midnight local time in the southern hemisphere. The Geminids are less well-known relative to other annual meteoric performances such as the Perseids, in part because December weather often threatens a clear view of the show.

Question: The annual Geminids meteor shower @placeholder overnight into Friday morning .


BBC Scotland has learned that Mr Green claims his contract with the Ibrox club entitled him to legal cover during and after his spell in charge. His lawyers have written to Rangers and want a court ruling on the claim. It is understood the fees involved could be in excess of ?¡ê500,000. The court ruling could happen as early as next week. Mr Green and a number of others, including the club's former owner Craig Whyte, were arrested and charged earlier this month. The moves followed an investigation by Police Scotland into off-field events at the club in 2012 and 2013.

Question: Former Rangers chief executive Charles Green is taking the club to court in a bid to get them to pay his legal fees after he was charged with serious @placeholder crime offences .


Police Scotland said they found debris strewn across both carriageways of the A1, south of Grantshouse, after responding to a call at 06:25. The lorry driver and a passenger managed to clear the north-bound side of the road so officers could operate a one-way system. A police spokeswoman said the road fully reopened at 09:00. Lorry driver Garry Godsell said the bags had been strewn across about 200 yards (182m) of the road. He said: "It happened before I got there. Some of the traffic was threading its way through the north bound side. "The vehicle involved was in a lay-by and its green curtain had come off." Traffic Scotland said the incident happened between the A6112 Grantshouse and the B6437 Auchencrow.

Question: Dozens of bags of clothes have been cleared from a major road in the Borders after a lorry shed its @placeholder .


The deal that Prime Minister David Cameron negotiated with the EU in February, giving the UK a special status as an EU member, will now be scrapped. The UK won a guarantee that it would not suffer discrimination by being outside the eurozone. That was to safeguard the City of London's authority, as Europe's biggest financial centre. In return, the UK pledged not to block deeper eurozone integration. If the UK manages to negotiate continued access to the EU single market on preferential terms the deal is unlikely to include the non-discrimination safeguards. EU deal: Did PM get what he wanted? Mr Cameron has now said he will stand down by October and pass on to his successor the role of invoking the EU's Article 50 procedure to negotiate the terms of the UK withdrawal. Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which has never been used before, sets a two-year time limit for reaching a deal. Generally seen as a tight deadline, it can be extended only if all 28 member states agree. Once the UK tells the EU that it is withdrawing under Article 50, it "shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it", the rule says. So on some issues the UK will be cut out of EU decision-making at the highest level before it actually leaves. The process requires the UK to unpick some 80,000 pages of laws binding the UK to the EU. Some will be kept, because some areas of EU policy are shared with non-EU countries, like Norway and Switzerland. Under this "divorce settlement", as some have called it, the UK and EU must agree how to divide assets, resolve EU budget issues and set out the future rights of EU nationals in the UK and vice versa. The settlement requires approval by a majority of EU members, plus the European Parliament and UK Parliament. After the EU referendum result: What happens now? The day after a vote to leave the EU Talks to determine new UK-EU trading arrangements could start during the two-year negotiating period for withdrawal, but not necessarily. If the EU waits until the UK's formal withdrawal, the negotiations might drag on for another five years or more. Pending a deal, the UK will trade with the EU under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. That would mean UK exporters paying new EU import tariffs and facing non-tariff barriers, in the same way that China and the US trade with the EU. UK services - accounting for 80% of the UK economy - would lose their preferential access to the EU single market. Free trade deals that the EU negotiated with 53 countries, including Canada, Singapore and South Korea, will no longer apply to the UK. If the UK wants the benefits of them it will have to renegotiate with those countries. The Remain camp said full access to the EU single market - the world's biggest free trade area with 500 million consumers - was crucial for the UK. But free movement of workers, payments into the EU budget and acceptance of the EU rulebook are conditions for that access. The EU is unlikely to bend on those conditions, because it does not want more members to leave the club. The UK might well sign up to those conditions, but it would not be able to influence EU rules, as it would lack a vote. Many in the Brexit camp see that position - exemplified by Norway - as unacceptable. The UK's main selling point is that it is a big market for EU exports, such as French food and German cars. Would Canada's deal with the EU be a good model for the UK? The UK will stop paying into the EU budget once it formally leaves the bloc. So the UK's current net contribution of about ?¡ê8.5bn (a??11bn; $12.5bn) annually will stay at home. It could be spent partly on the National Health Service, as some in the Brexit camp have suggested, or used to scrap VAT on fuel. But UK farmers will no longer get direct payments from the EU, which were worth about ?¡ê2.4bn in 2015. It is not clear how much of that, if any, the UK government will continue paying. Nor is it clear how much the UK's poorest regions will get in future, now that they no longer qualify for EU regional funding. How much does the EU Budget cost the UK? The UK will try to reduce immigration from the EU, probably with a points-based system like Australia's. It means giving priority to high-skilled workers and blocking entry to low-skilled ones. Many jobseekers from the EU may be told to leave. But first the UK will have to clarify the status of the nearly 2.2 million EU workers living in the UK. The rules for family reunions may get tougher. But any block on freedom of movement is unlikely for at least two years, while the UK is negotiating Brexit. Nearly two million UK nationals also live abroad in EU countries - so any British measures targeting EU workers could trigger retaliation against UK nationals abroad. What the UK can start doing immediately, however, is tighten the rules for migrant benefits. Brexit will undoubtedly boost the fortunes of anti-EU, anti-immigration parties in some other EU countries. It may also inspire Eurosceptics in some other countries to hold their own referendums on EU membership. Brussels would see that as a "domino" effect - a nightmare scenario for the European project. EU exit 'could take years to complete'

Question: The campaign to leave the European Union has won the referendum . It means the UK is now committed to withdrawing from the @placeholder of 28 countries , a process that has come to be known as Brexit . What does this mean for the UK and EU ?


The victim is understood to have been trying to get to an island when he got into trouble on Thursday evening. Specialist rescue officers led by the fire service later found his body in the water at Lee Valley Park in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire. Hertfordshire Police said the teenager was pronounced dead at the scene and there were no suspicious circumstances. More on this and other news from Hertfordshire A friend of the boy, who has not yet been officially named, said: "He was trying to swim to an island and got into trouble. "The two boys he was with tried to save him, but there was nothing they could do." Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, which led the operation, said the boy's body was found "after an extensive bankside and water search". They issued a warning to people thinking about swimming in open water. "Now that the weather is so warm it's very tempting to cool off with a swim," Chief Fire Officer Darryl Keen said. "However, even the strongest swimmer can get into difficulties and we would advise people to think carefully before swimming in unsupervised areas and look out for signs and advice about the specific dangers at the location where you are swimming."

Question: A 16 - year - old boy has @placeholder after getting into difficulties while swimming in a lake .


Chancellor Philip Hammond said on Thursday there should be "flexibility to manage the system" of taxation. But Tory party sources have told the BBC it was not a hint at plans to raise taxes in the Conservative manifesto. The shadow chancellor John McDonnell accused the government of planning "a tax bombshell". And the Liberal Democrats suggested Mrs May intended to hit the pockets of the "white van man". Before winning the 2015 general election, the Conservatives promised no rises in VAT, national insurance contributions, or income tax. By Iain Watson, BBC News political correspondent The American revolutionary Benjamin Franklin said the two great certainties were tax and death. And certainly commitments to push tax rates up can prove fatal to political campaigns. Philip Hammond criticised the constraints placed on him by his party's previous pledges not to raise income tax or national insurance. But now Conservative insiders are emphasising that does not mean the forthcoming manifesto will automatically abandon this position. The content of the document is yet to be agreed - but the swiftness of the response suggests that headlines in some Conservative supporting newspapers, speculating on tax rises, were far from welcome. On Thursday, Mr Hammond told the BBC's Kamal Ahmed that "we do need to make sure that Theresa May and her government have a clear mandate to execute our plan". "All chancellors would prefer to have more flexibility in how they manage the economy and how they manage the overall tax burden down [rather] than having to have their hands constrained," he said. "But what we put in the manifesto will be decided in the next few days and we will publish that." Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the chancellor was facing a ?¡ê2bn gap in his budget following the government's decision  not to carry out an increase in the rate of National Insurance contributions for the self-employed. "He's recognising he's got problems in the economy, he's got problems in the budgeting that he's done and as a result of that there will be tax rises under a Conservative government if they are re-elected. "This is quite a tax bombshell." Meanwhile, the prime minister said on Friday that the commitment to spending 0.7% of national income on international aid "will remain" although it must be spent "in the most effective way". It follows speculation she was ready to drop it from the Tory manifesto. But Mrs May declined to guarantee existing spending on state pensions, which ensures a minimum 2.5% annual increase.

Question: Speculation that the Conservatives are planning tax rises , if they win the general election , have been @placeholder down by party sources .


The 30-year-old skippered England to a 3-2 Ashes win over Australia this summer, but has not played since the final Test at The Oval in mid-August. England will soon travel to the UAE for a three-match Test series against Pakistan, starting on 13 October. Ian Bell is in Warwickshire's squad but Joe Root will not play for Yorkshire. Root, England's leading run-scorer during their Ashes win, was rested for the limited-overs series against Australia and will not play for Yorkshire against Sussex. But Jonny Bairstow and Adil Rashid, who both appeared in the shorter-form series, are included in the champions' squad. Fast bowler Stuart Broad, meanwhile, is set to make his first Championship appearance for Notts since June in their game against Hampshire. And new-ball partner James Anderson will continue his comeback from a side strain in Lancashire's game at Essex. However, Worcestershire's Moeen Ali and Middlesex's Steven Finn will not play in the Division One match between their respective sides at New Road. The final County Championship fixtures start on Tuesday.

Question: England captain Alastair Cook has been named in Essex 's 14 - man squad for their final County Championship game of 2015 against already - @placeholder Lancashire .


That is according to the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for October from Ulster Bank. It gives an idea of how firms in the private sector are doing in terms of things like job creation, business activity and new orders. This employment growth was driven by a pick up in construction and retail. However in manufacturing, output across the sector was flat and employment fell at the fastest rate since the middle of 2013. This comes after hundreds of job losses were announced at the Michelin tyre factory in Ballymena, County Antrim, last week. Ulster Bank's chief economist, Richard Ramsey, said: "Manufacturing is exposed to the wider global economic slowdown." He added: "Overall, the Northern Ireland private sector is still experiencing growth, but at a slowing rate, and with contrasting fortunes across the sectors. "There are a number of headwinds evident, and with an ongoing global slowdown impacting particularly on the manufacturing sector, these are likely to intensify into 2016 and indeed beyond."

Question: Private sector firms in Northern Ireland , @placeholder manufacturers , hired staff last month at a faster rate than at any time over the past five months .


The incident happened outside flats in George Court at about 15:15 on Thursday. The victim was taken by ambulance to Hairmyres Hospital but was later moved to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow for treatment. Hospital staff have described his condition as stable. The suspect, who walked off after the attack, was described as being about 6ft tall, of slim build. He was wearing a black tracksuit top with white stripes on the arms, black tracksuit trousers and white training shoes. Det Con Stewart Walton said: "This was a vicious attack which has left a man with serious injuries to this head. "We are currently reviewing CCTV footage to help identify the person responsible and inquiries so far have revealed that there were many people in the vicinity at the time this assault took place. "I urge these people to come forward immediately as they may have information that could assist our inquiry."

Question: A 42 - year - old man suffered serious head injuries after being punched and @placeholder by another man in a " vicious " attack in Hamilton .


The brawl broke out after two groups became involved in an row on a train which was travelling between Glasgow Central and Greenock Central. The incident happened between 09:30 and 09:50 on 17 December. Three of the people involved later got off the train at Greenock Central and the fourth got off at Greenock West. One of the men is described as being white, of a sturdy build and was wearing a pink and white shirt, smart jeans and brown boots. He suffered a laceration to the head. Two other men were both white. One was wearing a blue t-shirt, cream tracksuit and white trainers, whilst the other was wearing a black jacket. A woman was also believed to have been involved. She had shoulder-length hair and was wearing a pink top.

Question: British Transport Police are attempting to trace four people who were involved in a fight on a train which resulted in one person being @placeholder .