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Edwin Poots: Arlene Foster's exit is 'rough and tumble' of politics - BBC News
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2021-05-18
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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DUP leader-designate Edwin Poots says he would "assume" it may happen to him at some stage.
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Northern Ireland
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
DUP leader-designate Edwin Poots has defended the ousting of Arlene Foster as the "rough and tumble" of politics.
In an interview with BBC News NI, Mr Poots said sometimes "people are on the wrong side of it".
Mrs Foster announced her resignation as DUP leader and first minister last month after an internal party revolt.
"That is how politics is and we do not get involved in discussing internal affairs of the DUP in a public way," Mr Poots said.
Mr Poots said he "would assume at some stage it may well happen to me".
"Politics is a rough and tumble game and sometimes people are on the wrong side of it," Mr Poots said.
Mr Poots said he had spoken to Mrs Foster and would speak on a one-to-one basis "in due course".
Mrs Foster is due to step down as DUP leader on 28 May and as first minister at the end of June.
In an interview with the Sunday Life, Mr Poots indicated he will consult with the party about whether Arlene Foster should stand down as first minister earlier than her intended departure date.
Mr Poots is not due to take over as leader until Arlene Foster steps down on 28 May
The DUP leader-designate said he wanted to split the DUP leader and first minister roles because he believes there is a "real piece of work" to do in building the party and he wants to give his attention to that.
But he added: "We will see in due course. But I move forward with the commitment that I wasn't going forward as first minister... if in the future members think it would work better with me as first minister, then we will have that discussion. But for this time, I don't have any interest or intent to do that."
Mr Poots also signalled he has no intention of collapsing Stormont over the Northern Ireland Protocol, which places a border in the Irish Sea.
He said Stormont is an asset in making the arguments against the protocol.
"It gives us authority to make arguments. It takes us right to the centre of government in the United Kingdom and I have made these arguments."
He said the arguments would be put forward forcibly and that legally, every course that can be taken to tackle the protocol will be taken.
"We will take every reasonable exercise that we can to ensure that we can inflict damage to the protocol," he said.
Mr Poots has said he is keen to ensure a smooth transition when Mrs Foster steps down.
He has been holding individual meetings with DUP assembly members, seeking their views before beginning any shake-up.
His plans are thought to include changing the ministerial team, as well as the DUP chairs and vice-chairs of Stormont's committees.
He also met Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis on Tuesday.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57160315
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news_uk-northern-ireland-57160315
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Election 2021: What do the results mean for Scottish independence? - BBC News
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2021-05-08
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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In the fight between Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon, there can only be one winner.
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UK Politics
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There is one thing that Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnson can agree on. That now isn't the time to have another vote on a Scottish referendum.
That is just about where agreement between arguably the two most dominant political figures in the country right now begins and ends.
Beyond that, the first minister is determined before too long to push for a vote. The prime minister, is set on saying 'no'.
There is one thing they have in common too. They are both vote winners for their parties with big personal followings, who are defying political tradition, refreshing their parties' mandates to govern after over a decade in power.
But if the dispute between them over the future of the UK is ever to be resolved, only one of these winners can come out on top.
From today, Nicola Sturgeon is cranking up her rhetoric, suggesting that Boris Johnson is a democracy denier, set on turning down the desire of what she always terms the people of Scotland, who have expressed their wish for another vote.
Some of her backers, and also some of Mr Johnson's allies, believe that saying a simple blank refusal of another referendum could stoke up support for Scotland going it on its own further.
While she fell short of achieving the high bar of a majority for the SNP on its own, with the Green Party, the Scottish Party does have a majority who want independence.
The SNP is totally dominant in terms of seats. And the parties promising another referendum won. Those parties who vowed to block one lost.
Boris Johnson will resist granting such a vote at all costs, and is keen, for now at least to keep the argument calm.
In his armoury, the legal and technical reality that the law, specifically Schedule 5, Part 1 of the Scotland Act (with which you may get familiar in the coming months, I promise) says in black and white that the constitution is a "reserved matter".
In other words, anything change to how the country is run, or who is in charge is a decision to be made by politicians from all parts of the United Kingdom who occupy the green benches in Parliament.
If you want to take a look for yourself, it's here.
Legal experts aren't quite sure however how this would be interpreted in the courts in the rather likely scenario that the situation ends up there one way or another.
While the first minister has the Parliament on her side, and Boris Johnson has the power and the legal backing as it stands to say no, they both have difficulties too.
Nicola Sturgeon can say the Parliament of Scotland is pro-independence, but she knows very well that its people are almost exactly divided.
As Professor John Curtice, the polling guru explains, "It looks as though the SNP plus the Greens are heading for 49% of the constituency vote, and that the SNP plus the Greens and Alba may win 51% of the list vote.
"In truth, the only safe conclusion one can draw from these results is that Scotland is indeed divided down the middle on the constitutional question."
She has a reliable majority for a referendum in the Parliament, but not when it comes to the public.
The possibility of another referendum delights some voters, but it creates dread for others.
And she will be reminded again and again by unionists that in 2014, she and other figures said the referendum then was a "once in a generation".
Conversely, Mr Johnson might find that a flat 'no' to a request from Holyrood proves the SNP's case that the UK government just doesn't listen - that's long been a sentiment that has driven some Scots towards to the case for independence.
And while Downing Street is extremely sure that it doesn't want to grant another referendum, it's less sure how to it can increase support for the union.
The issue has been discussed more regularly than in recent years, there are promises of a new attitude, new spending, and a new focus on proving the case for the UK.
But while there does seem to be a genuine realisation in Tory circles that 'something must be done', quite what, and how compelling it might be, that's still rather vague.
Neither the prime minister, nor the first minister want to join in full battle on this now. But it's a fight delayed, not a fight that's disappeared.
Both successful leaders, both in an uncomfortable status quo, and for that to change, would mean one of them would have to fail.
P.s. Without question one of the things this complicated set of results has had in common, is that politicians have prospered where they made a big feature of standing up for their areas.
Whether it's Ms Sturgeon's prominent role, and her constant vocabulary about acting for the 'people of Scotland', Andy Burnham's striking words about Manchester, Mark Drakeford in Wales, Ben Houchen in Tees Valley, Andy Street in the West Midlands - the list goes on.
Perhaps, that's down in part to voters rallying behind leaders who have seen them through the pandemic.
Certainly, the emergency has demonstrated more than before the responsibilities that leaders with devolved powers have, and how they can use them.
From a purely political point of view, it's given them a platform.
But there is something else going on perhaps too. Irrespective of party, irrespective of the pandemic, politicians who define themselves against Westminster, who spend time and effort building popularity and profile among their voters are doing well.
Showing up, being visible, and shouting loud on smaller political stages is having an effect on big national results.
As Westminster politicians look on with some envy, we'll return to this theme before too long!
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57044089
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news_uk-politics-57044089
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Post Office scandal: Former staff contacted over prosecutions - BBC News
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2021-05-08
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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It is contacting former workers potentially caught up in the UK's most widespread miscarriage of justice.
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Business
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The Post Office says it will help clear the names of hundreds of former sub-postmasters it wrongly took to court.
They were prosecuted based on evidence from the flawed Horizon system the Post Office installed in branches.
It is now contacting 540 former workers with potentially relevant convictions, and seeking further information in another 100 cases.
Last month, 39 ex-staff had convictions for stealing quashed in court.
Barrister Flora Page, who represented three of the appellants, called the letters from the Post Office "a direct result of the resounding judgment in the Court of Appeal".
A Post Office spokesman said it "sincerely apologises for serious historical failures".
"We continue to take determined action for people affected," the spokesman said.
"The Post Office has made strenuous efforts to identify individuals who were historically convicted and an extensive post-conviction disclosure exercise is taking place to identify and disclose all material which might affect the safety of those convictions."
Between 2000 and 2014, the Post Office prosecuted 736 sub-postmasters based on information from the flawed computer system, which wrongly showed shortfalls in the sub-postmasters' accounts.
Some staff went to prison following convictions for false accounting, theft and fraud.
Others were financially ruined and have described being shunned by their communities. Some of those who may have been wrongfully prosecuted have since died.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. "It was all about clearing my name - I'm not a thief": Former Post Office workers react outside court
The clearing of the names of the 39 former staff came after six other convictions were overturned in December, meaning that more people have been affected than in any other miscarriage of justice in the UK.
Ms Page told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that a judge-led inquiry into the scandal is "exactly what is required", as the current government-led inquiry was "not empowered" to "do what it needs to do".
The government has said it will not extend the remit of its inquiry, which is expected to report in the summer. The current inquiry cannot compel witnesses to attend or hand over evidence.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The PM calls the jailing of postal staff “one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in our history"
Asked if other parties - such as the Horizon's developers, Fujitsu - should be held accountable, Ms Page added: "I think there will be malicious prosecution claims.
"That's one of the reasons why the Post Office contested the appeals in the way that they did.
"They only accepted the limited argument. They didn't accept the wider argument that their prosecution regime was a wider affront to the public conscience.
"And they resisted that because they had an eye to the fact that malicious prosecution claims would be coming down the line and of course not just the 39, but now as we see it, hundreds and hundreds of them."
Are you a former Post Officer worker who has been affected by this story? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.
Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:
If you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57035924
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news_business-57035924
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Elections 2021: Parties make last push for votes before polls open - BBC News
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2021-05-05
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Thursday's votes mark the first test for parties since the 2019 general election and the pandemic.
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UK
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Political parties have made their final push for votes ahead of elections in England, Scotland and Wales.
All 129 seats in Holyrood are being contested, Scottish independence set to be a key issue, while Wales will elect the 60 members of the Senedd.
English voters will decide on thousands of council seats, choose 13 mayors and elect an MP for Hartlepool.
Thursday marks the first test for parties since the 2019 general election and the pandemic.
The so-called "Super Thursday" elections will also see police and crime commissioners elected across England and Wales.
Many of the elections were postponed from last year by the pandemic and Covid restrictions have transformed campaigning.
Large public meetings were moved online and there were limits on groups of activists going door-to-door.
Polls open from 07.00 to 22:00 BST on Thursday, with results due from Friday.
Campaigning in England, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the Conservatives faced a "very tough set of elections" after reaching a "high water-mark" in previous council polls.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said his party had a "mountain to climb" to win back support in key battlegrounds.
In Scotland, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon urged the public to vote for "strong, experienced leadership" and said the result of the Holyrood elections was "always on a knife-edge".
Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said people had a choice between an independence referendum or focusing on Covid recovery.
Anas Sarwar, leader of Scottish Labour, urged people to put aside "old arguments" about independence and vote for jobs, education and the NHS.
Meanwhile, the Lib Dems said they would also put "recovery first" rather than letting the debate be dominated by a referendum.
Welsh Labour Leader Mark Drakeford said his party was "battling hard" in north Wales amid a challenge from the Conservatives, but warned voters against "handing Wales back to London with the Tories".
Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak visited a holiday park in Rhyl, Vale of Clwyd, where he promised voters in Wales the same "change that we're bringing across the United Kingdom".
In Llanelli, Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price said the election would be "won on small margins", calling it a "historic opportunity" to put his party in government.
The pandemic means ballots are expected to take longer than usual to count, creating greater uncertainty over when results will be declared.
Some counts will take place overnight on Thursday, including for the Hartlepool by-election, where a result is expected early on Friday.
But counting in some council areas in England will take place on Friday, or over the weekend.
A dozen of the counts for 39 police and crime commissioners elected in England and Wales will not begin until Monday.
Results for all 60 seats in the Welsh Senedd will be known on Friday.
Scotland starts counting in some areas on Friday, but there will not be a final result until Saturday, or possibly even Sunday.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57003482
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news_uk-57003482
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Britain prepares for Super Thursday voting spree - BBC News
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2021-05-05
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Millions of votes on Thursday's elections will provide a jigsaw of results but creating a pattern will prove more complex.
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UK Politics
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Polling stations across the country are preparing - including the Isle of Gigha, as Presiding Officer Morven Beagan loads her car with equipment
Whatever you want to call the votes tomorrow, there will be millions and millions of them, in a sweeping set of elections.
There are national polls in Scotland and Wales for the Holyrood Parliament and the Senedd. Council elections across England, from the tiniest parish to huge powerful authorities, 39 ballots for police and crime commissioners, 13 directly elected mayors and the London Assembly too.
It's a strange set of elections, after a year when the country has been in and out of lockdown, putting politics and much other business as usual on hold.
Government at all levels has been grappling with a health and an economic emergency and while pollsters have been busy number crunching, there are plenty of races that are very hard to predict.
And the votes will matter in many ways, from who collects the bins in Derbyshire to the future of the whole UK.
First off, deciding who controls councils in England is an important job for voters. Councils are in charge of how the elderly are looked after, how late pubs on your high street can open, planning, the bins (of course), to name just a few.
Local government has huge influence over our lives in lots of ways. City mayors also have a growing role in the UK, whether it's what seems to have become the Labour fiefdom of London, or Tory mayor on Teesside.
The individual contests matter for our quality of life, but make a difference to political sentiment too. At this stage of an electoral cycle, where one party has been in charge nationally for more than 10 years, the Tories in this case, the oppositions should be gobbling up seats all over the place.
But having changed its leader twice, and hung on through a political rollercoaster, it just doesn't seem like that's set to happen. Indeed, the broader question for the two main parties might be about geography rather than number of places that really change hands.
Can the Tories keep up their momentum in areas the Labour Party used to rely on? Can Labour, after Jeremy Corbyn, stop the electoral rot?
For political nerds, a by-election in Hartlepool too provides a very convenient example of this big test. The current formation of the seat has never been held by the Tories. If they can grab it from Labour now, it suggests their vote in 2019 with dozens of new seats turning blue was not a fluke.
If Keir Starmer's team can't hold it, mutterings about his ability to reverse the trend will get louder. (It's important to note, though, in 2019 the Brexit Party received more than 10,000 votes in that constituency - this makes it harder this time for Labour than less recent history might suggest.)
The elections in Wales, where notably 16 and 17-year-olds will vote for the first time, seem unlikely to produce what would be the first majority in the Senedd for any party.
But the experience of the pandemic has demonstrated the powers and profile of its devolved government. Results will be watched closely there to see if that tips the balance.
The most keenly anticipated decisions though will be those made by Scottish voters. The SNP has been far and away the dominant force at Holyrood for many years. The real potential prize for Nicola Sturgeon this time round would be for the party to win a majority on its own.
Her backers believe that would give the SNP a convincing mandate to hold another independence referendum, something that Boris Johnson right now has the legal power to refuse and, indeed, says that he would block.
But some unionists fear meeting an outright majority with a brick wall would not be possible for long. Yet with internal spats and the dramatic moves of the former leader Alex Salmond, the SNP's armour-plated unity has taken a fair few knocks.
And with many Scottish races extremely close, the outcome is hard to predict. But this week could see the start of many months of fraught fights, even court cases, over the future of the Union where once again, politics in the whole UK becomes tangled up in arguments about the constitutional status quo.
It is important to remember as the results come in that these elections are complicated. They capture one moment in time, they don't make the next steps inevitable. And voters, of course, vote different ways in different contests.
This time, however, the long list of different contests will make an overall picture even harder to draw.
One insider described them as a 'spinners dream' - there will be so much going on that each party afterwards will have evidence from somewhere to try to create its own headline.
Each result will give us a jigsaw piece to try to create a pattern, but this time, not every piece will even be taken from the same box.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56994017
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news_uk-politics-56994017
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Passengers refused boarding amid testing confusion - BBC News
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2021-05-27
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Travellers with Ryanair and EasyJet were told they could not fly because they had taken the wrong PCR test.
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Business
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"Even when you triple check the rules, you could be refused to board - it put me out of pocket, distressed me, and distressed my elderly parents who I was visiting."
Sally Shiels was due to fly from Birmingham airport to Dublin on Friday 21 May to visit her parents.
She says she, and about 30 other passengers, were not allowed to board the plane because they had the wrong type of negative Covid-19 test result.
Ireland, like many other countries requires people to present a negative result for a RT-PCR test before departure. PCR tests need to be sent away to a lab to be checked, and you are later informed of the results.
Sally works for the NHS, and in her role she is offered regular asymptomatic PCR testing. This means staff are regularly tested even if they don't have symptoms.
She believed her latest test result from work could be used for travel, because it met the testing standard required by the Irish authorities. However, Sally was refused boarding.
This is because she later learned that the UK government advises that only private providers can be used for PCR tests for travel.
Sally says: "On my arrival at the front of the queue, the ground staff said I was not allowed to board. I asked why and she said it needed the letters PCR.
PCR tests for travel can cost between £50 and over £100
"And when I explained that this was a valid test, it even said exactly what PCR test it was, while it didn't say the letters P, C and R, I couldn't convince her, and myself and 30 other passengers were refused boarding for a variety of reasons that day."
The flight was operated by Ryanair, which told Radio 4's You & Yours programme: "Ryanair fully complies with government restrictions.
"A number of passengers on this flight from Birmingham to Dublin were denied boarding as they failed to present a negative Covid-19 RT-PCR test result, as required by Irish regulation."
The airline also referred to the Department for Transport guidance that private testing should be used, and that NHS Test and Trace cannot provide the required documents.
Sally Shiels says some of the passengers refused boarding had tried to use negative test results obtained from NHS Test and Trace. Tests through NHS Test and Trace are free, but you must be showing symptoms and book an appointment at a test centre.
Sally thinks some passengers may have sought NHS tests to avoid paying the costs of a private test which can cost between £50 and over £100.
"I completely understand why we shouldn't be using this [Test and Trace] system, otherwise everyone will be using the free NHS system, saying they had a cough or a cold to get their negative swab to travel."
Ryanair said it fully complies with government restrictions
Sally Shiels referred to the Irish government guidance that does not mention the use of NHS tests, and she says she checked the Ryanair website which only warned against NHS Test and Trace testing, not other types of NHS tests.
"It was so poorly managed by Ryanair ground staff, there was dismal customer service, there was no way we could speak to anybody, and we were treated like criminals."
Sally later booked another flight to Belfast which didn't require a test and travelled to Dublin from there.
Simon Calder, travel editor at the Independent newspaper, says: "I do sympathise with so many people like Sally who have just tripped up.
"Semantically, Ryanair can mount an argument for why they denied her boarding, and they of course will be fined if they take people into a country and those people are not properly tested according to the authorities of a destination."
He added: "If you haven't paid for a test then assume it's not valid."
Imogen in London had a similar experience at Luton airport on Saturday 22 May. She wasn't allowed to board her EasyJet flight to Porto in Portugal.
"I had been nervous about the whole thing as there was so much paperwork. It seems to me they're trying to dissuade people from flying by making it as complicated as possible."
Imogen is an NHS worker and had taken a PCR test that was available to her in her workplace. She had an email document that showed her name, date of birth, date the sample was tested and the negative result.
However, the member of airline staff that she dealt with told her there was no proof of when she'd taken the test, so it wasn't acceptable.
"I was surprised I wasn't allowed on the flight. I can see that it's a massive amount of work for the airline, at the gate you can see that it's tripled their workload. I know it's not the airline staff's fault."
Imogen was travelling to Portugal to see her boyfriend who lives in Porto. After being refused boarding on the flight she had to pay £249 for a private PCR test with a fast result and £130 for a replacement flight to Portugal.
EasyJet told You & Yours: "Passengers travelling to Portugal are currently required to present a negative Covid test on departure, which includes providing documentation from a private provider with details of the passenger and the date the test was taken.
"Should passengers be unable to provide this unfortunately we are unable to carry them. We are sorry for any inconvenience caused however we do require passengers to have the correct documentation as required by the authorities."
For more information on the tests you need to travel to green, amber and red destinations click here
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57243205
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news_business-57243205
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Podcast host Joe Rogan clarifies vaccination comments: 'I'm not anti-vax' - BBC News
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2021-05-01
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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"I'm not a doctor," the US podcast host said, after suggesting young people could pass on vaccines.
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US & Canada
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Hugely popular US podcast host Joe Rogan has backpedalled on his comments that young, healthy people could forgo the coronavirus vaccine.
"I'm not an anti-vax person," Rogan said. "I believe they're safe and encourage many people to take them."
But Rogan did not walk back his suggestion that the young and healthy do not "need" vaccines, which drew backlash from White House officials.
Experts say everyone over 16 should get vaccinated to stop the virus' spread.
The Joe Rogan Experience was Spotify's most popular podcast in 2020, though the streaming giant did not share the number of times his episodes were downloaded. Rogan has more than seven million followers on Twitter and 12.5 million followers on Instagram.
His podcast was acquired by Spotify last year for more than $100m (£77m).
Asked about Rogan's comments, top US infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci repeated guidance from experts that unvaccinated, asymptomatic people can still transmit Covid-19.
"Even if you don't have any symptoms, you're propagating the outbreak," Dr Fauci said.
Rogan made the comments during a 23 April episode of his podcast, which was first reported by Media Matters this week.
In that episode, Rogan told listeners that he would not suggest the vaccine to a healthy 21-year-old. "If you're a healthy person, and you're exercising all the time, and you're young, and you're eating well...like, I don't think you need to worry about this."
Responding to the criticism on his podcast on Thursday, Rogan said the argument that young people need the vaccine "for other people" made sense.
"But that's a different argument," he added.
And Rogan stressed that he should not be a source of scientific advice. "I'm not a doctor," he said. "I'm not a respected source of information, even for me."
The TV host-turned media mogul regularly courts controversy for his blunt and sometimes inflammatory style on air. He has been accused of making sexist, racist and transphobic comments in his podcast. Rogan has denied these accusations and said his comments were taken out of context.
Joe Rogan is a huge draw for Spotify - so much so, in fact, that his show was mentioned in Spotify's quarterly earnings call. Joe Rogan's podcast had "performed above expectations," the company said.
Spotify wants to be the place you go to for podcasts and The Joe Rogan Experience is a major plank in that strategy. You might come for Joe Rogan, but stay to listen to other podcasts. Spotify says it's seen a "strong increase" in the number of people listening to podcasts since the pandemic hit.
However wrapping yourself around a controversial figure like Rogan has its dangers - and this saga illustrates that risk.
Rogan said when he signed the deal with Spotify that he would have editorial control. Spotify have publicly backed the podcaster.
But of course Spotify does have the power to pull the podcast.
As ever Big Tech says it's is trying to balance two things: risk to the public v freedom of speech.
However there's always a third factor. Money.
When the face of your podcast offering says something that US politicians, the White House and medical experts deride as dangerous - that doesn't look good for Spotify's brand.
For now, it looks like Spotify is willing to back the podcaster, and Rogan will hope his retraction will draw a line under the matter.
Rogan is not the only US public figure to be accused of anti-vaccine remarks.
Current US Vice-President Kamala Harris said during the election campaign last year that she would not trust any vaccine approved by the Trump administration. Then-US Vice-President Mike Pence accused her of "playing politics with people's lives".
US Vice-President Kamala Harris was last year accused of anti-vaccine comments
Two coronavirus shots - by Pfizer and Moderna - were subsequently granted authorisation under Mr Trump. Ms Harris received the Moderna jab after the election and said then it was safe.
Last year, both Rogan and Spotify faced criticism over the appearance of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on his show.
The streaming giant has so far stood by its star host, touting Rogan's podcast in its first quarter earnings report this week. Spotify did not immediately return a BBC request for comment.
"We have 8 million creators, and hundreds of millions of pieces of content," Spotify CEO Daniel Ek told Bloomberg News. "We have a content policy and we do remove pieces that violate it."
US and global health authorities have found Covid-19 vaccines to be safe and effective in preventing infection and safety checks continue throughout the world.
Experts have warned that misinformation has been fuelling vaccine hesitancy.
In the US, nearly 100 million people have been fully vaccinated. This week, President Joe Biden urged all Americans to get their jab, calling it a "patriotic duty".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56948665
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news_world-us-canada-56948665
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Joseph Parker beats Derek Chisora by split decision after recovering from early knockdown - BBC Sport
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2021-05-01
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[]
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Joseph Parker recovers from being knocked down in the opening 10 seconds to beat Derek Chisora on points.
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Joseph Parker recovered from being knocked down in the opening 10 seconds to beat Derek Chisora on a split decision and keep alive hopes of a shot at the world heavyweight title.
The Briton floored New Zealander Parker at Manchester Arena with an overhand right to the temple.
But the former world champion turned the tide and landed combinations as the bout wore on, while Chisora tired.
It proved enough to earn a split decision 115-113 111-116 115-113.
Chisora, 37, felt aggrieved by the scoring and said: "I'm beyond getting upset now. It's difficult. I train hard. I put pressure on, this is the treatment I get from boxing.
"I was bringing it. I was doing more power punches and inside work. I won't let them slow me down. I will go again. I will not let them win. They want to see me retiring but I am not yet."
• None 'I decided to keep him in there' - Eubank Jr returns with win
Chisora had said he might withdraw from the fight because he had to walk to the ring before his opponent, a threat in keeping with the unpredictability he has served up in over 14 years as a professional.
Some have questioned why he still headlines pay-per-view cards after 10 previous career defeats but the looping right hand that sent Parker to the canvas served as an instant reminder of his threat.
As always, he looked to bulldoze his opponent with constant pressure but Parker - eight years his junior at 29 - was able to build momentum as Chisora slowly faded.
To Parker's credit, facing such pressure is mentally taxing but he stood up to both the knockdown and an early onslaught before beginning to land good combinations of his own.
In the seventh a one-two followed by a three-shot flurry sent Chisora back to the ropes and pointed to his vulnerability.
In the 10th Parker followed another one-two with an eye-catching short left hook and he teed off on Chisora again in the 12th as he closed in on a 29th win from 31 outings. Only British heavyweights Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte have bettered him.
Asked if winning a world title for a second time is a possibility, Parker said: "It's very achievable. I just have to get back to training. There's still a lot I can show.
"It was a very close fight. I thought it could go either way. He brought the smoke."
The former champion can look to bigger names but the stars at the top of the division possess natural size advantages that will make his task all the more tricky.
Chisora, in contrast, must search for a next move. He has shown time and again he can come up with something to go after.
BBC Sport boxing correspondent Mike Costello:"I made Parker the winner by three rounds but wouldn't mount a strong argument against the judge who favoured Chisora. It was compelling heavyweight boxing and - coming after Taylor-Jonas - just imagine a night like that with a crowd.
"Parker did well to recover so quickly from the early knockdown and for me his cleaner punching at long and mid-range was decisive. His durability and resilience were also factors and, given more time with his new trainer Andy Lee, there should be better to come.
"Chisora's reputation won't suffer in losing such a fight and the Parker camp have said there should be a rematch - not a difficult sell."
BBC Radio 5 Live boxing analyst Steve Bunce: "Should this be Derek's last fight? Can you get enough money for risking your reputation? If there is something out there where he can make the same money or close to what he made tonight, then yes.
"What I don't want to see is him reduced to third on the bill and be there as a test for somebody.
"If there's another heavyweight out there he can generate that type of money with, let him fight.
"I don't want to see Derek become an 'opponent' - he's better than that."
• None A group of hackers cause mayhem in Hollywood for Sony Pictures Entertainment
• None The Crowd Science team explores why it is a universal feeling
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Election 2021: What do the results mean for Scottish independence? - BBC News
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2021-05-09
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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In the fight between Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon, there can only be one winner.
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UK Politics
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There is one thing that Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnson can agree on. That now isn't the time to have another vote on a Scottish referendum.
That is just about where agreement between arguably the two most dominant political figures in the country right now begins and ends.
Beyond that, the first minister is determined before too long to push for a vote. The prime minister, is set on saying 'no'.
There is one thing they have in common too. They are both vote winners for their parties with big personal followings, who are defying political tradition, refreshing their parties' mandates to govern after over a decade in power.
But if the dispute between them over the future of the UK is ever to be resolved, only one of these winners can come out on top.
From today, Nicola Sturgeon is cranking up her rhetoric, suggesting that Boris Johnson is a democracy denier, set on turning down the desire of what she always terms the people of Scotland, who have expressed their wish for another vote.
Some of her backers, and also some of Mr Johnson's allies, believe that saying a simple blank refusal of another referendum could stoke up support for Scotland going it on its own further.
While she fell short of achieving the high bar of a majority for the SNP on its own, with the Green Party, the Scottish Party does have a majority who want independence.
The SNP is totally dominant in terms of seats. And the parties promising another referendum won. Those parties who vowed to block one lost.
Boris Johnson will resist granting such a vote at all costs, and is keen, for now at least to keep the argument calm.
In his armoury, the legal and technical reality that the law, specifically Schedule 5, Part 1 of the Scotland Act (with which you may get familiar in the coming months, I promise) says in black and white that the constitution is a "reserved matter".
In other words, anything change to how the country is run, or who is in charge is a decision to be made by politicians from all parts of the United Kingdom who occupy the green benches in Parliament.
If you want to take a look for yourself, it's here.
Legal experts aren't quite sure however how this would be interpreted in the courts in the rather likely scenario that the situation ends up there one way or another.
While the first minister has the Parliament on her side, and Boris Johnson has the power and the legal backing as it stands to say no, they both have difficulties too.
Nicola Sturgeon can say the Parliament of Scotland is pro-independence, but she knows very well that its people are almost exactly divided.
As Professor John Curtice, the polling guru explains, "It looks as though the SNP plus the Greens are heading for 49% of the constituency vote, and that the SNP plus the Greens and Alba may win 51% of the list vote.
"In truth, the only safe conclusion one can draw from these results is that Scotland is indeed divided down the middle on the constitutional question."
She has a reliable majority for a referendum in the Parliament, but not when it comes to the public.
The possibility of another referendum delights some voters, but it creates dread for others.
And she will be reminded again and again by unionists that in 2014, she and other figures said the referendum then was a "once in a generation".
Conversely, Mr Johnson might find that a flat 'no' to a request from Holyrood proves the SNP's case that the UK government just doesn't listen - that's long been a sentiment that has driven some Scots towards to the case for independence.
And while Downing Street is extremely sure that it doesn't want to grant another referendum, it's less sure how to it can increase support for the union.
The issue has been discussed more regularly than in recent years, there are promises of a new attitude, new spending, and a new focus on proving the case for the UK.
But while there does seem to be a genuine realisation in Tory circles that 'something must be done', quite what, and how compelling it might be, that's still rather vague.
Neither the prime minister, nor the first minister want to join in full battle on this now. But it's a fight delayed, not a fight that's disappeared.
Both successful leaders, both in an uncomfortable status quo, and for that to change, would mean one of them would have to fail.
P.s. Without question one of the things this complicated set of results has had in common, is that politicians have prospered where they made a big feature of standing up for their areas.
Whether it's Ms Sturgeon's prominent role, and her constant vocabulary about acting for the 'people of Scotland', Andy Burnham's striking words about Manchester, Mark Drakeford in Wales, Ben Houchen in Tees Valley, Andy Street in the West Midlands - the list goes on.
Perhaps, that's down in part to voters rallying behind leaders who have seen them through the pandemic.
Certainly, the emergency has demonstrated more than before the responsibilities that leaders with devolved powers have, and how they can use them.
From a purely political point of view, it's given them a platform.
But there is something else going on perhaps too. Irrespective of party, irrespective of the pandemic, politicians who define themselves against Westminster, who spend time and effort building popularity and profile among their voters are doing well.
Showing up, being visible, and shouting loud on smaller political stages is having an effect on big national results.
As Westminster politicians look on with some envy, we'll return to this theme before too long!
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Nicola Sturgeon tells PM referendum is case of 'when - not if' - BBC News
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2021-05-09
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Scotland's first minister has spoken to Boris Johnson for the first time since the SNP's election victory.
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Scotland politics
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nicola Sturgeon says it would be "absurd" if things ever got close to the point of taking the SNP to court.
Scotland's first minister has told Prime Minister Boris Johnson that a second independence referendum is "a matter of when - not if".
Nicola Sturgeon spoke directly with Mr Johnson for the first time since the SNP won an emphatic victory in Thursday's Holyrood election.
Earlier, Ms Sturgeon said she did not expect the debate to end up in court.
A senior UK government minister appeared to suggest it would not mount a legal challenge to her plans.
During a phone call with Mr Johnson on Sunday afternoon, the first minister pledged to work with the UK government on steering the country through the Covid pandemic towards recovery.
The SNP said the leaders also agreed the importance of both governments working together "closely and constructively" to make the forthcoming UN climate conference in Glasgow a success.
But a party spokeswoman added: "The FM also re-iterated her intention to ensure that the people of Scotland can choose our own future when the crisis is over, and made clear that the question of a referendum is now a matter of when - not if."
Boris Johnson has invited Ms Sturgeon to a summit on a UK-wide approach to recovery from the pandemic
The UK Government said Mr Johnson spoke to the first minister to "congratulate her on her party's success" in the Scottish Parliament election.
A spokesman said the prime minister emphasised "the importance of focusing on Covid recovery at this time".
He added: "They both agreed that their immediate focus should be on working together to build back from the pandemic.
"The Prime Minister reiterated his invitation for the first minister to join a summit meeting to discuss our shared challenges on Covid recovery and how we can overcome them."
Meanwhile, appearing on the BBC's Andrew Marr programme, Nicola Sturgeon was questioned whether she would introduce a referendum bill as early as next spring based on predictions that the UK will have recovered in terms of coronavirus circulation and GDP.
She said: "That would certainly work for that timescale of within the first half of the parliamentary term.
"I desperately hope those predictions are correct but we have to judge that as we go through this year. We've still got significant challenges ahead. I wouldn't rule that out but I'm not sitting here saying that is the timescale."
Mr Johnson earlier invited Ms Sturgeon and her Welsh counterpart Mark Drakeford to a summit to discuss a UK-wide approach to recovery from the pandemic.
He has said it would be "reckless and irresponsible" to have a referendum right now, and the UK government is not currently expected to grant formal consent for a vote to be held - as it did ahead of the 2014 referendum.
Ms Sturgeon congratulated five of the SNP's new MSPs on Sunday morning
There has been speculation that the row could end up with the courts being asked to rule on whether the Scottish government has the power to hold a referendum without the UK government's agreement.
But Ms Sturgeon said she did not believe either side wanted a legal battle over the issue.
She said: "The UK government knows that if we ever get into a situation where this is being determined in the courts then actually what the UK government is arguing is that there is no democratic route for Scotland to have independence.
"The implications of that would be very grave indeed. If the argument of the unionist side is that Scotland is trapped it strikes me that that is one of the strongest arguments for independence."
A modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. More information about these elections Who won in my area? Enter your postcode, or the name of your English council or Scottish or Welsh constituency to find out. Eg 'W1A 1AA' or 'Westminster' A really simple guide to the 2021 elections
Ms Sturgeon also said it would be "absurd and completely outrageous" if the UK government went to court over the issue and that it was "up to the Scottish people" to decide the country's future.
Her party stood on a manifesto to steer the country out of the pandemic, and to then hold a referendum, which she said people had "voted overwhelmingly for".
She added: "The fact that we are sitting here having a debate about whether or not that outcome is going to be respected says a lot about the lack of respect for Scottish democracy that this UK government has demonstrated for quite some time now."
Also appearing on the programme, Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove said he would "not go near" the issue of the UK government potentially challenging a referendum bill in court.
He said: "Whatever parties we come from, the priority at the moment is not court cases, it's not independence legislation - it is recovery from the pandemic."
When asked if Scotland was allowed to leave the UK, he said: "Of course it is, through a legal referendum which would allow people to make that choice."
But he also insisted that the SNP's failure to win an overall majority showed that the people of Scotland were not "agitating" for a referendum.
The SNP finished on 64 seats in Thursday's Scottish election - one short of a majority but one more than it won in 2016 - while the Conservatives won 31, Labour 22, the pro-independence Scottish Greens eight and Liberal Democrats four.
But Mr Gove said a majority of voters - 51% - had backed parties that were opposed to independence in the constituency ballot - although the same percentage voted for pro-independence parties in the regional list ballot.
Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove appeared on Marr during a visit to Scotland
BBC Scotland's Sunday Show later asked Mr Gove to clarify the indication he gave to Marr that the UK government would not mount a legal challenge to a Scottish independence referendum bill.
Mr Gove said: "We are not going to go down the route of talking about independence or legal challenges or anything like that now when our principal focus and exclusive attention is going on pandemic recovery.
"At the moment all we want to do is work with the first minister to concentrate on dealing with the consequences of the pandemic and the need to recover and build back better."
Mr Gove denied he was giving the Scottish government a green light to pass a referendum bill, saying "we are concentrating on recovery at the moment".
In her victory speech, Ms Sturgeon said her priority was leading the country through the pandemic - but said she still intended to hold an independence referendum once the crisis has passed.
In a letter to Ms Sturgeon published on Saturday night, the prime minister invited Ms Sturgeon to "discuss our shared challenges", adding "we will not always agree - but I am confident... we will be able to build back better, in the interests of the people we serve."
Mr Johnson said the country needed to "show the same spirit of unity and co-operation that marked our fight against the pandemic" in engineering a Covid-19 recovery.
But he warned it would be a "difficult journey", adding: "The broad shoulders of the UK have supported jobs and businesses the length and breadth of the country, but we know that economic recovery will be a serious shared responsibility."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-57046408
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Scottish independence court battle played down - BBC News
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2021-05-09
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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UK minister Michael Gove tells the BBC's Andrew Marr that his government would not go to court to stop a second Scottish independence referendum.
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Scotland
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It is perhaps understandable that there is lots of talk of independence and referendums the morning after a Holyrood election, given the SNP have won big once again.
However, there is an argument to be made that the constitution is not necessarily the most interesting storyline in the wake of the polls.
There is still a pro-independence majority at Holyrood, and there is still an intense debate about mandates and process. But for all that, neither side actually wants anything to happen immediately, while there is still a pandemic to be dealing with.
The arguments being exchanged this morning are really rather familiar, and there is little incentive for anyone to change their tune straight away – not until the facts on the ground change, such as with the passing of a referendum bill at Holyrood.
And there are some really pressing issues for the SNP in the coming days and weeks as it forms a new administration.
To start with – who will take up key Cabinet posts left vacant by retiring MSPs? These include the health secretary, during a pandemic; the constitution secretary, as Brexit unfolds; and the environment secretary, in the year of COP26.
And then there are the other big ideas in the SNP manifesto – things like a National Care Service, a minimum income guarantee, publicly-owned rail services.
The constitution was clearly a big issue in the campaign and thus it is no surprise that it is the focus of intense discussion today.
But there is a lot more to Scottish politics than just the question of independence.
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Analysis: Is the Green Party on the rise - and if so, why? - BBC News
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2021-05-09
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Are the party's gains in Thursday's polls a flash in the pan or the start of something bigger, asks Chris Mason.
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UK Politics
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Caroline Lucas and Sian Berry share a joke on the campaign trail
The joy of a buffet of elections is being able to graze on the details that emerge beyond the main headlines - the political afters while most people are gorging on the main course.
So, let's take a look at how the Green Party did in Thursday's polls.
Or should I say, green parties.
Others are poring over the pivotal role the Scottish Greens are likely to play in the coming years in the Scottish Parliament, given they serve up Nicola Sturgeon with a majority in favour of another independence referendum, which the SNP didn't manage on its own.
But what about the Green Party of England and Wales?
No such power-broking for them on the national stage, but some fascinating trends to take a peek at.
The party has gained more than 80 council seats so far.
We should be clear: that's a rise from a very small number, to a slightly bigger small number.
But then there are mayoral races.
In Bristol, the Greens gave Labour a run for its money, and finished second.
"The Green Party is one of the two main parties in this city," said the party's candidate, Sandy Hore-Ruthven.
Sian Berry, the party's co-leader and candidate for Mayor of London, tweeted a video with delight celebrating her "really strong third place".
She managed just shy of 200,000 first-preference votes, double her party's total in 2012.
Bluntly, though, politics is a pursuit where you are either a winner, or one of the losers.
So does any of this matter?
Politics is also about building momentum, and fighting for attention.
If you get labelled as "other," an amorphous blob of minnows, that is rather hard.
Molly Scott Cato says voters are facing up to the climate crisis
So little wonder Jonathan Bartley, the party's co-leader alongside Sian Berry, suggested it should be their party rather than the Liberal Democrats, that found itself invited on to a television sofa this weekend to mull over the results.
The Lib Dems have 11 times as many MPs - Caroline Lucas is still the Greens' sole representative on the green Commons benches - and more than four times as many councillors in England, but the Greens claim to have more mojo, movement and growth.
The BBC's elections supremo. Professor Sir John Curtice says: "These local elections appear to confirm that the Greens are now able to win a non-trivial proportion of the vote."
But is this any more than the ebb and flow of election cycles? Or is it indicative of some sort of trend?
In a typically pugnacious post on social media, former Green MEP Molly Scott Cato said: "The way broadcasters are almost entirely ignoring the frankly astonishing gains by the Green Party is the best indicator to those who want real change and to challenge the establishment that they should always vote Green."
I called her with a mild sense of trepidation (incidentally, Jonathan Bartley had been on Newsnight and Sian Berry talked to Huw Edwards on the BBC's election special, but we'll let that go).
The Green Party's performance at this set of elections was down to three factors, Ms Scott Cato told me.
"People are facing up to the climate crisis, which we've been thinking about for decades," she said.
There was also "disillusionment with Labour" and, finally, "the shoe leather thing", as she put it.
"You do find people who say they are Green voters. But you don't find anyone who says, 'My granddad voted Green.'"
In other words, if there is any tradition to voting Green, it doesn't run very deep.
The party has to scrap and harry for every single vote.
Ms Scott Cato reckons that makes the Greens distinctive, where others may be more complacent about at least something of a core vote.
Who is voting Green, and where? And how much of this points to evidence of a splintering on the Left, where, in very broad terms, Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP and the Greens are all chasing voters who lean in that direction, leaving the Conservatives with a near monopoly for those who lean to the Right?
"The party's performance overlapped with Labour's, with the strongest Green showings in areas with the most graduates and professionals," writes Professor Rob Ford of Manchester University in the Observer.
Professor Matthew Goodwin, of the University of Kent, takes the argument further in The Sunday Times.
"The quietly impressive performance by the Greens this week is a big hint that we may well be heading in the same direction as our European neighbours, such as Germany, where cosmopolitan parties are eclipsing the old centre-left."
He adds: "Fast forward 10 years and I'd not be surprised to see the Greens or the Lib Dems as a much bigger force, rallying zoomer graduates, middle-class professionals and city-dwellers in the face of a Labour Party that looks bewildered and lost."
Plenty of parties have been assumed by some to be on the brink of death, only to revive themselves.
George Dangerfield wrote a book called The Strange Death of Liberal England, in 1935.
Geoffrey Wheatcroft wrote a book called The Strange Death of Tory England, in 2005.
Others have been talked up, as the Greens have before, only to tread water or shrivel.
Predicting what might happen in politics is a brave game, which is what makes it so fascinating to observe.
The Green Party of England and Wales remains a tiddler, but there is evidence it is growing, and growing in confidence.
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Edwin Poots: Arlene Foster's exit is 'rough and tumble' of politics - BBC News
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2021-05-19
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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DUP leader-designate Edwin Poots says he would "assume" it may happen to him at some stage.
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Northern Ireland
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
DUP leader-designate Edwin Poots has defended the ousting of Arlene Foster as the "rough and tumble" of politics.
In an interview with BBC News NI, Mr Poots said sometimes "people are on the wrong side of it".
Mrs Foster announced her resignation as DUP leader and first minister last month after an internal party revolt.
"That is how politics is and we do not get involved in discussing internal affairs of the DUP in a public way," Mr Poots said.
Mr Poots said he "would assume at some stage it may well happen to me".
"Politics is a rough and tumble game and sometimes people are on the wrong side of it," Mr Poots said.
Mr Poots said he had spoken to Mrs Foster and would speak on a one-to-one basis "in due course".
Mrs Foster is due to step down as DUP leader on 28 May and as first minister at the end of June.
In an interview with the Sunday Life, Mr Poots indicated he will consult with the party about whether Arlene Foster should stand down as first minister earlier than her intended departure date.
Mr Poots is not due to take over as leader until Arlene Foster steps down on 28 May
The DUP leader-designate said he wanted to split the DUP leader and first minister roles because he believes there is a "real piece of work" to do in building the party and he wants to give his attention to that.
But he added: "We will see in due course. But I move forward with the commitment that I wasn't going forward as first minister... if in the future members think it would work better with me as first minister, then we will have that discussion. But for this time, I don't have any interest or intent to do that."
Mr Poots also signalled he has no intention of collapsing Stormont over the Northern Ireland Protocol, which places a border in the Irish Sea.
He said Stormont is an asset in making the arguments against the protocol.
"It gives us authority to make arguments. It takes us right to the centre of government in the United Kingdom and I have made these arguments."
He said the arguments would be put forward forcibly and that legally, every course that can be taken to tackle the protocol will be taken.
"We will take every reasonable exercise that we can to ensure that we can inflict damage to the protocol," he said.
Mr Poots has said he is keen to ensure a smooth transition when Mrs Foster steps down.
He has been holding individual meetings with DUP assembly members, seeking their views before beginning any shake-up.
His plans are thought to include changing the ministerial team, as well as the DUP chairs and vice-chairs of Stormont's committees.
He also met Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis on Tuesday.
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Nicola Sturgeon appoints new health and education secretaries - BBC News
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2021-05-19
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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The first minister unveils her revamped cabinet team, with several new faces being appointed to key roles.
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Scotland
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Nicola Sturgeon has unveiled her new cabinet team, with several new faces being appointed to ministerial roles.
Shirley-Anne Somerville has been named as the country's new education secretary, with Humza Yousaf moving from justice to health.
Mr Yousaf has been replaced as justice secretary by Keith Brown.
Finance Secretary Kate Forbes will take on an expanded role which will also give her responsibility for the economy brief.
And Angus Robertson has been appointed as the constitution, external affairs and culture secretary - which is likely to be a key role as the Scottish government pushes for a second independence referendum.
Mr Robertson was once the SNP's leader at Westminster and became an MSP in the election earlier this month.
Other changes saw Michael Matheson take on a new role as cabinet secretary for net zero, energy and transport.
Shona Robison is the new social justice, housing and local government secretary, and has been tasked with reducing child poverty as well as working to deliver on the SNP's pledge to build 100,000 affordable homes.
Mairi Gougeon replaces Fergus Ewing as the rural affairs and islands secretary after Mr Ewing stood down earlier on Wednesday - as did Fiona Hyslop, who had been the economy, fair work and culture secretary.
It was announced on Tuesday that Deputy First Minister John Swinney would be given a new role with responsibility for co-ordinating the country's recovery from the Covid pandemic.
The move meant Mr Swinney would no longer be the country's education secretary - with that role now being filled by Ms Somerville.
Several other senior posts were left empty when ministers retired from parliament ahead of the election.
Paul Wheelhouse - who had been energy minister - lost his seat in the election.
Humza Yousaf is the new health secretary after previously being responsible for the justice brief
The Scottish Conservatives said Ms Sturgeon had only been able to muster "the same tired faces that have already failed Scotland's schools, hospitals and justice system."
And Scottish Labour said the new ministerial team must focus on the recovery from the pandemic rather than "the arguments of the past".
Nicola Sturgeon has made big changes to her cabinet - even if many of the "new" faces are rather familiar ones.
To start with, she has slimmed down the full cabinet from 12 to 10, with roles such as environment and transport being combined.
Kate Forbes is the only minister who keeps their old job, with a beefed-up finance portfolio.
Michael Matheson keeps his transport job, but "net zero" and the climate emergency will be a big focus of his new role.
Shirley-Anne Somerville and Humza Yousaf have arguably the biggest jobs in education and health, and this is part of a pattern of posts going to more experienced hands rather than fresh faces.
This team actually has more in common with the cabinet appointed in 2016 than with the most recent version, from 2018 - with Keith Brown and Shona Robison reclaiming their places at the top table.
And another of the "new" ministers is Angus Robertson, a former deputy leader of the SNP who has 16 years of experience as an MP.
Mairi Gougeon is the only junior minister to win promotion into the full cabinet.
Ms Sturgeon said her new team would ensure that Scotland had a "serious government for the serious times we face as a nation".
She added: "It is a government which will drive Scotland forward, as we look to build a just, fair and sustainable recovery from the Covid pandemic.
"My cabinet team combines experience with new arrivals and fresh faces, giving us the range and depth of talent we need to tackle the pressing issues we need to tackle, from covid to climate change."
Ms Sturgeon was sworn in as first minister at a ceremony in the Court of Session
Ms Sturgeon later headed to the Court of Session to be formally sworn in as first minister.
She won a vote of MSPs on Tuesday to ensure she remains in the role following the SNP's victory in the election on 6 May.
Three new MSPs were among 15 junior ministerial appointments made later on Wednesday.
Mairi McAllan, who was previously part of Ms Sturgeon's team of special advisers, became the new minister for environment, biodiversity and land reform.
George Adam, who has been an MSP since 2011 and was the SNP group chief whip at Holyrood, was made the new minister for parliamentary business.
Thomas Arthur, who had been deputy whip, was given the role of public finance, planning and community wealth minister.
The remaining junior appointments were as follows:
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Trump's legal battles: How six cases may play out - BBC News
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2021-05-19
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Defeated in the election, Trump will soon become a private citizen again. A legal storm awaits him.
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US & Canada
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As president of the United States, Donald Trump enjoyed unique protection from legal action, be it criminal or civil.
Now, after losing the 2020 presidential election, Mr Trump will soon become a private citizen again.
That means he will lose his presidential privileges, putting him in the crosshairs of litigators and prosecutors.
"Once he is out of office, the atmosphere will change," Daniel R Alonso, a former US federal and New York state prosecutor, told the BBC. "He will no longer have the reality or the threat of presidential power to thwart investigations."
A wide-ranging criminal investigation in New York is the most serious legal concern for Mr Trump and his real-estate company, the Trump Organization.
On top of that, there is an array of lawsuits ranging from allegations of fraud by a family member to sexual harassment by an advice columnist.
A legal storm is brewing. Here, we consider how the six biggest legal battles may develop.
What we know: Playboy model Karen McDougal, adult film actress Stormy Daniels and claims of a conspiracy of silence.
This was the gist of the so-called hush-money scandal. Both women said they had had sexual relationships with Mr Trump and had received payments to keep them quiet, ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
When they spoke out in 2018, they threw political dynamite under Mr Trump's presidency, lighting the fuse of two criminal investigations.
Stormy Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, says she had sex with Mr Trump in 2006
The first focused on violations of federal, or national, laws and the role of Michael Cohen, Mr Trump's former personal lawyer and "fixer".
Under investigation, Cohen admitted to arranging payments to the two women. The payments were prosecuted as campaign-finance violations and Cohen was sentenced to three years in jail in 2018.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Five things Cohen said about Trump
Cohen alleged that Mr Trump had "directed" him to make the payments, yet no charges were brought against the president. Why?
Firstly, to charge Mr Trump, prosecutors would have needed to prove that he had indeed directed Cohen to make those payments. Secondly, even if prosecutors did have sufficient evidence, it is against US government policy to indict a sitting president on federal criminal charges, legal experts say.
Case closed, right? Well, not exactly. This is where it gets technical.
Karen McDougal apologised to Melania Trump for the affair she says she had with her husband
Put simply, a second criminal investigation into the payments is still under way in New York.
We know that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance is examining whether the Trump Organization falsified business records related to the payoffs.
What we don't know is whether Mr Vance has any evidence to file criminal charges. That matters.
What might happen next: Falsifying business records is a misdemeanour under New York law. A misdemeanour is a minor crime that can be punishable by a jail term of up to a year.
Now, here's the tricky part for Mr Vance.
There is a two-year time limit for filing criminal charges for a misdemeanour in New York.
"So, because those payments happened over two years ago, it looks like [prosecutors] are out of luck," Mr Alonso said.
That said, there are other possibilities.
Cyrus Vance has been leading a criminal investigation into the Trump Organization since 2018
In New York, falsifying business records can be charged as a felony if it is done to conceal other crimes, such as tax fraud.
Felonies are more serious crimes that can be prosecuted over a longer period and are punishable by tougher jail sentences.
Still, the route to prosecution is uncertain. It is not clear if Mr Trump can be prosecuted under New York law for campaign-finance violations - the federal crime Cohen was jailed for.
This is where the other strands of Mr Vance's investigation come in.
What we know: It's a "political hit job", a Trump Organization lawyer said of Mr Vance's inquiry in August 2019.
Mr Vance had just issued a request for documents, known as a subpoena. He demanded to see years of financial records, including the Holy Grail - Mr Trump's tax returns, eight years of them.
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Since then, Mr Trump has tried to block the subpoena, arguing in courts that it amounts to political harassment. In October, a federal appeals court disagreed, putting his tax returns within touching distance of prosecutors.
Indeed, Mr Vance has stressed the significance of Mr Trump's tax returns in court papers.
When requesting the returns in August, Mr Vance referred to "public reports of possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization", including allegations of possible insurance and bank fraud. Another court filing in September mentioned tax fraud as a hypothetical crime that could be established, should evidence be found to support it.
In New York, some types of tax fraud can be charged as felonies, which can carry lengthy prison sentences. At the moment, though, the "public reports" of possible crimes cited by Mr Vance's office are merely grounds for investigation, nothing else.
What might happen next: Mr Trump is expected to appeal against the demand to hand over his tax returns in the Supreme Court. There, the matter may be settled.
For Mr Trump, the stakes are high.
"The most significant criminal investigations are those exploring his tax and bank filings," Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University, told the BBC. "But whether there's a criminal case has yet to become evident."
If Mr Vance does obtain Mr Trump's tax returns, a criminal case may or may not become evident. Either way, Mr Vance needs those tax returns to move his investigation forward.
What we know: New York Attorney General Letitia James has been another thorn in Mr Trump's side.
Since March 2019, Ms James has been leading a civil investigation into whether the Trump Organization committed real-estate fraud.
Again, the roots of this investigation lead back to Cohen who, in February 2019, told Congress that Mr Trump had inflated the value of his property assets to secure loans and understated them to reduce his taxes.
Michael Cohen, fixer for Mr Trump, was called to testified before the House Oversight Committee in February 2019
Cohen's testimony gave Ms James grounds to seek information about Mr Trump's property empire. Like Mr Vance, Ms James has had to fight for that information in the courts.
Eric Trump, the executive vice-president of the Trump Organization and the president's son, has accused her of waging a "political vendetta". Despite this, he complied with a request to sit for testimony with her office in October.
What might happen next: Ms James needs more testimony and information to take the investigation forward.
In office, Mr Trump argued that he was too busy to deal with lawsuits. Now, he cannot use that excuse.
Ms James can treat Mr Trump with less deference, pressing him to sit for questioning under oath, just like his son.
Letitia James has taken testimony from Mr Trump's son, Eric
"Most courts would be very indulgent with a president-defendant on things like scheduling, for instance. Not so with a private citizen," Mr Alonso said.
Civil investigations like this can result in financial penalties, if evidence of wrongdoing is found. If it is, another criminal inquiry cannot be ruled out.
What we know: Emolument is an archaic word that is seldom used today, except in legal contexts. The definition is contested, but it is generally understood to mean gain, profit or advantage from employment or holding public office.
So what does this have to do with Mr Trump?
He has been accused of breaking rules against "emoluments" during his presidency. These rules, known as the emoluments clauses, were written into the country's bedrock legal text, the US Constitution.
Mr Trump's hotel in Washington was often the site of protests during his presidency
One clause requires all federal officials, including the president, to seek the consent of Congress before accepting any benefits from foreign states.
Three separate civil lawsuits alleged that Mr Trump had not sought that consent. One cited the hosting of foreign officials at the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC as a possible violation.
Mr Trump has derided "this phony emoluments clause", suggesting other sitting presidents have made money.
What might happen next: Regardless, the emoluments lawsuits will probably be dismissed or dropped, legal experts say. One brought by congressional Democrats has already been rejected by the Supreme Court.
"Emoluments are not likely to be the basis of any criminal action," said Mr Turley, an expert on constitutional law.
"The emoluments cases relate to Trump holding office, so once he leaves office, the controversy becomes largely academic."
What we know: Mr Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women whose allegations span decades. Mr Trump has denied all the allegations, dismissing them as "fake news", political smears and conspiracies.
Many of the accusers came forward ahead of Mr Trump's election win in 2016. Mr Trump vowed to sue them all but, as yet, has not done so.
Instead, some of the accusers have sued Mr Trump. Two of those women have filed defamation lawsuits against Mr Trump for calling them liars.
E Jean Carroll has accused Mr Trump of raping her in the 1990s
E Jean Carroll, a long-time columnist for Elle magazine, is one of them. She has accused Mr Trump of raping her in a dressing room at a luxury Manhattan department store in the 1990s. Mr Trump denies it and is contesting the defamation claim.
In her lawsuit, Ms Carroll argues Mr Trump defamed her by saying he could not have raped her because "she's not my type". Her lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and a retraction of Mr Trump's statements.
Ms Carroll v Mr Trump seemed straightforward enough until September, when the US Department of Justice weighed in.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jessica Leeds, one of Mr Trump's accusers, has demanded action
The department took the unusual step of trying to replace Mr Trump with the United States as a defendant in the case.
In the end, a federal judge ruled against the department's intervention, arguing "the allegations have no relationship to the official business of the United States".
What might happen next: The case can now proceed, allowing Ms Carroll's lawyers to gather evidence.
For example, they could press on by attempting to verify if Mr Trump's DNA is on a dress Ms Carroll says she was wearing at the time of the alleged assault. For that, they would need a DNA sample from Mr Trump.
A similar but separate defamation lawsuit filed by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on Mr Trump's television show The Apprentice, may go the same way.
Summer Zervos (left) was one of several women to accuse Mr Trump of sexual misconduct ahead of the 2016 election
Ms Zervos alleged that Mr Trump had sexually assaulted her during a meeting to discuss job opportunities at a Beverly Hills hotel in 2007.
Mr Trump dismissed the allegation as "phony", accusing Ms Zervos of fabricating it for fame. Ms Zervos then sued him for defamation in 2017, seeking damages of at least $3,000.
Mr Trump tried to get the case dismissed during his presidency. His lawyers suggested that, as president, he should be immune to lawsuits in state courts.
"That argument completely evaporates on 20 January," Barbara L McQuade, professor of law at the University of Michigan, told the BBC. "Once that happens, we move to the discovery phase of the case and there could be some movement there."
What we know: "Fraud was not just the family business - it was a way of life," reads the first line of Mary Trump's lawsuit against her uncle Donald.
As an opening salvo, it could hardly be more contemptuous.
It mirrors the animosity of Ms Trump's newly released memoir, in which she chastises her uncle as a "narcissist" who threatens the life of every American.
In her book, Mary Trump calls her uncle the "the world's most dangerous man"
The family beef is as personal as it gets and Ms Trump's lawsuit, filed in September, reflects that acrimony.
In it, she accuses Mr Trump and two of his siblings of cheating her out of an inheritance while pressuring her to give up interests in the family business.
Ms Trump inherited valuable interests in the family business when Fred Trump Jr - her father and the president's older brother - died in 1981 at the age of 42. Ms Trump was 16 at the time.
Mr Trump and his siblings "committed to watch over" Ms Trump's interests, the lawsuit says.
"They lied," the lawsuit says. "Rather than protect Mary's interests, they designed and carried out a complex scheme to siphon funds away from her interests, conceal their grift [fraud], and deceive her about the true value of what she had inherited."
The lawsuit seeks at least $500,000 in damages.
What might happen next: The White House said Ms Trump's book was full of "falsehoods", but Mr Trump is yet to reply to the lawsuit.
If requests for documents and testimony come, Mr Trump cannot cite his presidential duties as a reason to deny them.
No American citizen, not even the president, is categorically above the law.
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Laindon death: Boy, 16, charged with murder of James Gibbons - BBC News
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2021-05-06
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Police believe James Gibbons was stabbed to death when he went to the aid of another man.
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Essex
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James Gibbons had just celebrated his two-year-old twin daughters' birthday
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with the murder of a father of four who was stabbed to death in the street where he lived.
James Gibbons, 34, was attacked at Iris Mews, Laindon, Basildon in Essex, at about 21:30 BST on Sunday.
Police believe the self-employed plumber had gone to the aid of another man and died during an argument that followed.
The teenager will appear at Chelmsford Magistrates' Court on Friday.
Essex Police said it had arrested six teenagers as part of the investigation.
A 13-year-old boy arrested on suspicion of murder and a 14-year-old boy held in connection with Mr Gibbons' death have been released on bail.
Another 13-year-old boy has been released on bail in connection with an assault, while two girls, aged 15 and 16, arrested on suspicion of murder will not face charges, officers said.
Flowers have been left near where James Gibbons was attacked
Earlier on Sunday Mr Gibbons had celebrated his two-year-old twin daughters' birthday at home, his family said.
In a statement released through Essex Police, they said: "We are absolutely broken beyond belief at this pointless loss which has had a devastating effect on us all.
"James was the kind of person who would always be prepared to help anyone less fortunate than himself, which is what he was doing on Sunday night."
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Mayra Zulfiqar shooting: Police had been warned before killing - BBC News
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2021-05-06
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Mayra Zulfiqar asked for protection in Pakistan less than two weeks before she died, the BBC learns.
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Mayra Zulfiqar, a Belgian national living in London, studied at Middlesex University and went to school in Twickenham
A London woman killed in Pakistan had warned police in Lahore her life was in danger less than two weeks before her murder, the BBC has learned.
Mayra Zulfiqar, 24, was found in a pool of blood in a flat on Monday.
Thirteen days earlier, she had asked police for protection after accusing a man of abducting her at gunpoint.
The law graduate had been threatened by two men who both wanted to marry her, according to legal documents seen by the BBC.
Pakistani police are conducting a murder inquiry and so far no formal arrests have been made.
Forensic investigations are continuing and it is understood a number of interrogations have been conducted.
In a police report filed on 20 April, Ms Zulfiqar named and accused a man of abducting her at gunpoint and attempting to sexually assault her a few days earlier.
She said she managed to run away by alerting bystanders, but the man threatened her, saying "you won't be able to escape, I will kill you."
Residents in the upmarket street where Ms Zulfiqar was renting the upper portion of a house, said police had previously visited the area looking for CCTV of a car involved in the alleged abduction.
A neighbour, talking on condition of anonymity, told the BBC that loud arguments could often be heard from the property, and that on one occasion men brandishing knives had been seen threatening Ms Zulfiqar from the street.
Police would not respond to requests for comment on the report.
On Monday morning a maid working in the house called the emergency services after discovering Ms Zulfiqar's body.
She had been shot twice, and police believe she may have also been strangled.
Residents described hearing shouts in the early hours of the morning.
Ms Zulfiqar had arrived in Pakistan with her parents about two months ago to attend a family wedding.
But when they returned to the UK, she decided to stay on in the country.
Mourners paid their respects to Ms Zulfiqar at a funeral service in Lahore
Ms Zulfiqar's funeral was held in Lahore on Tuesday, attended by her father, who had travelled back to the city.
Prayers for the law graduate were also offered near the family home in West London.
Ms Zulfiqar was a Belgian national living in London, according to the UK Foreign Office, which has referred her family to Belgian consular services.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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Max Mosley: Privacy campaigner and ex-motorsport boss dies at 81 - BBC News
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2021-05-24
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The president of the FIA governing body from 1993 to 2009 was also a prominent privacy campaigner.
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UK
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Former motorsport boss Max Mosley, who later became a privacy campaigner, has died aged 81.
Ex-Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone said it was "like losing a brother".
Mr Mosley, who had been suffering from cancer, led motorsport's governing body the FIA from 1993 to 2009.
He also campaigned for tighter press regulation after winning £60,000 damages from the News of the World when it wrongly published a story alleging he had attended a Nazi-themed orgy.
Mr Mosley, in his role as FIA president, initiated widespread reforms of safety procedures in Formula 1 following the death of Ayrton Senna in 1994.
Mr Ecclestone added: "He did, a lot of good things not just for motorsport, also the [car] industry. He was very good in making sure people built cars that were safe."
Current FIA president Jean Todt said in a tweet he was "deeply saddened" by the news, adding that Mr Mosley "strongly contributed to reinforcing safety on track and on the roads".
Meanwhile, a spokesman for F1 described Mr Mosley as "a huge figure in the transition" of the sport.
Mr Mosley - the son of 1930s British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley - took his privacy action against Sunday tabloid the News of the World in 2008 over the paper's story.
The newspaper had secretly filmed him with five prostitutes and later published a front-page story.
A judge ruled there was no substance to the allegation that there had been a Nazi theme to the sex party and found that his privacy had been breached. The High Court also said the article was not in the public interest.
Although Mr Mosley was awarded damages, everyone had learned the details of his sexual preferences, and he argued money alone could not restore his reputation.
He went on to seek reform of celebrity privacy laws, making a bid in 2011 for newspapers to warn people before exposing their private lives.
His case was unsuccessful, but it led Mr Mosley to use some of his family fortune to support victims of the Fleet Street phone-hacking scandal.
He also backed the independent press regulator Impress through a family charity, which Mr Mosley set up in his son Alexander's memory, after he died in 2009.
Mr Mosley said in 2011 that the story had a "very bad effect" on Alexander, whose death was ruled as being due to non-dependent drug abuse.
Impress chief executive Ed Procter said Mr Mosley improved access to justice for victims of press misconduct and put "his own resources behind efforts to ensure that these issues will not be forgotten".
Hacked Off, which was set up in response to phone-hacking, said it was thanks to Mr Mosley's "courage and generosity that the movement for a more ethical press remains so effective today".
And media lawyer Mark Stephens, who represented phone-hacking victims, described Mr Mosley as "effectively the author of modern privacy law".
With a family history that ruled him out of politics, Max Mosley turned his brilliant, devious mind to motorsport
Max Mosley was one of the most influential and important figures in motorsport over the last half-century - and also among the most controversial.
With a brilliant intellect and a devious, sometimes malicious mind, he was arguably better suited to a career in politics.
But he was the son of the 1930s British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, and in his youth was involved in his father's post-war political party the Union Movement. He realised his personal history would prevent him from entering Parliament, so he directed his attention towards motorsport instead.
Mosley was a fascinating and contradictory character. Urbane and charming, he was never less than engaging on a personal level.
But not everyone felt so kindly towards this patrician and sometimes patronising figure. Mosley had a vindictive streak. His political and legal abilities were widely admired, but not everyone found him easy to like.
Born in London on 13 April, 1940, Mr Mosley studied physics at Christ Church, Oxford, and later turned to law and became a barrister.
After a brief career as a racing driver in the late 1960s, in which he rose to race in Formula 2, he co-founded the racing car constructor March in 1970 with Robin Herd, Alan Rees and Graham Coaker - the company name formed from the initial letters of their surnames.
The company won its first three Formula 1 races in 1970 and later diversified into other forms of motorsport, but by the end of 1977 Mr Mosley had left the company to work full-time in motorsport politics.
He joined forces with Bernie Ecclestone at the Formula 1 Constructors' Association (FOCA) and the two fought a bitter political war for control of the sport with the governing body, then called FISA, in 1980 and 1981.
The arguments were finally settled with the so-called Concorde Agreement, which essentially set up the structure of the sport that remains in place to this day - FOCA, later to be renamed F1, held the commercial rights, while FISA controlled the rules.
Max Mosley at his wedding to Jean Taylor in London in 1960
Mr Mosley left motorsport in 1982 to work for the Conservative Party but returned four years later to become president of the FISA manufacturers' commission.
He used the role as a springboard to launch a bid for the presidency of FISA in 1991. Mr Mosley then became president of its parent body the FIA, the international automobile federation, when the two were merged in 1993.
He quickly established a modus operandi as a president who was proactive, provocative and controversial.
In 1993, he instigated a ban on driver aids such as traction control and active suspension against the wishes of the teams. And his combative approach, in which he used a vast intellect to devise clever strategy and often Machiavellian tactics, continued over his near two-decade stay in his role.
His biggest challenge came a year later, when Ayrton Senna was killed in an accident at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix that was broadcast live around the world - just 24 hours after Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger died in a crash during qualifying for the same race.
As a global sporting icon, and an almost God-like figure in his native Brazil, Mr Senna's death raised serious questions about safety in Formula 1, and world leaders contacted Mr Mosley questioning the sport's position.
Recognising the threat to the sport's existence, Mr Mosley introduced a series of changes to the cars, setting in motion a new approach whereby the safety of the drivers and spectators was central to the ethos of motorsport and attempts were made to constantly improve it.
In this, he was backed by Mr Ecclestone, and supported by the FIA medical delegate Professor Sid Watkins and the FIA F1 director Charlie Whiting. Together they changed the face of the sport.
Max Mosley became a prominent privacy campaigner after winning his 2008 legal action
As FIA president he also turned his attention to road cars, and was central in introducing the EuroNCAP crash testing programme.
This required manufacturers to meet minimum safety standards in their cars for the first time and has played a significant role in reducing the number of deaths in road accidents.
But the longer Mr Mosley remained in situ, the more F1 teams began to become uncomfortable with what they saw as an authoritarian and arbitrary approach, along with sometimes questionable methods and motives.
Mr Mosley's reputation with the F1 teams was badly damaged by his deal to remove the TV rights to F1 from Foca and sell them on a 100-year lease to Mr Ecclestone's companies for what many considered to be a paltry one-off figure of $360m in 1995.
His antagonistic style of running the sport continued through the 2000s and the beginning of the end of his time at the FIA came with the News Of The World's story.
He survived the initial outcry but when in 2009 he tried to introduce a budget cap into F1, the big teams had had enough.
The latest of many political fights began, and this time Mr Mosley lost. The major teams and car manufacturers threatened to set up a rival championship, and to bring them back into the fold Mr Mosley had to agree not to seek a further term as president when his latest one expired in October 2009.
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Covid: Will UK vaccine success keep virus at bay? - BBC News
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2021-05-12
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As the UK returns to normal, there are plenty of reasons to be hopeful, despite the variants.
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Health
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Next week will see the most significant lifting of restrictions yet in England, with indoor mixing to be allowed. The rest of the UK is making similar steps.
It means the onus is increasingly shifting on to the vaccines, rather than social distancing and restrictions, to keep the virus at bay. How well do they work? And is there now enough immunity in the population to protect us all?
The UK has benefited from both fast rollout and good uptake. Currently, a third of the adult population is fully vaccinated, with another third having had one dose.
Among those at most risk - the over-50s and younger adults with health conditions, where 99% of Covid deaths have occurred - uptake for the first dose has been 95%.
Some describe that as being only partially vaccinated. But that can underplay the significance of that first dose, which provides most of the protection - the second acts to boost immunity and is important for long-lasting protection.
The latest government data - based on evidence from the rollout - suggests one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine cuts the risk of infection by as much as 70% and death by even more.
Data on their effectiveness after two doses is only just emerging - but, as expected, it suggests this level of protection is boosted even further. For Pfizer, which was rolled out first, the risk of death is reduced by 97%.
What is more, those that are vaccinated but do become infected are thought to be about half as likely to pass the virus on.
The vaccines are working about as well as could be hoped in the real world - and confirm what the trial results always suggested.
In fact, the impact is so good it raises the prospect of the UK reaching the herd-immunity threshold, meaning the virus is unlikely to spread because so few people can catch it.
Sir John Bell, a member of the government's vaccine taskforce, believes we may indeed be at a "tipping point".
But it is a complex equation influenced by other factors. The amount of natural immunity from people who have had Covid already will play a role.
Data from April published by the Office for National Statistics indicated nearly seven out of every 10 adults had Covid antibodies - above what could be explained by vaccination alone.
Another factor is how the public reacts. Even if the government lifts restrictions completely in June, as it has suggested, it is unclear how quickly "normal" behaviour will return.
What is clear is the amount of virus circulating is very low and has continued to fall even as the first steps out of lockdown have been made.
Whether this will be enough to stop infections rising in the coming months remains to be seen.
Scientists had always warned the easing in England, Scotland and Wales on Monday, 17 May, was the one that could push numbers up the most, given the virus is most likely to be passed on indoors.
But there is good reason to hope the vaccines will be enough to stop that pretty much on their own, says Dr Adam Kucharski, an expert in infectious diseases, at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
"It is possible we will get to a situation where [infection rates won't rise] without the need for many other measures," he says.
"The vaccines are working that well that domestically we can gradually relax restrictions and enjoy the summer."
The big unknown, Dr Kucharski says, is the variants. Those identified in Brazil, South Africa and India appear to be able to evade some of the immune response from the vaccines.
But much of this is based on testing in labs rather than evidence from the real world, which makes it hard to interpret, as it largely focuses on one element of the immune response - antibodies.
"The data is very patchy. That makes it difficult knowing with certainty what will happen next."
The "most likely scenario", he says, is vaccines lose some ability to stop infections - but provide protection against serious disease.
We are in a really good position... We are de-risking Covid
Emerging real-world evidence suggests this is the case. A study in Qatar indicated the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine remained as effective at preventing serious illness and lost only a little of its ability to block infections - and that was against the South Africa variant scientists are most concerned about.
But the lack of certainty makes some uneasy. University College London clinical research director Prof Christina Pagel, a member of the Independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, wants the UK to proceed with more caution, not releasing restrictions fully until all adults have received their second dose, which is not expected before the end of September.
She is calling for an Australia-style closure of borders to reduce the risk of variants being imported. "I just don't think it is worth the risk," she says.
But, as always with Covid, the argument returns to what is proportionate. There is a theoretical risk the virus could mutate enough to undermine the vaccines so there is a surge in serious cases.
But what is the likelihood of that happening all of a sudden as opposed to a gradual shift over years that is more common with coronaviruses and will allow vaccines to be updated to keep up with the virus?
Prof Neil Ferguson, an expert in infectious disease, from Imperial College London, whose modelling led to the first lockdown, says it is the worst-case scenario and unlikely. And the UK is "much more likely to be on a steady course" out of the pandemic.
Dr Muge Cevik, from St Andrews University, agrees. Having researched the variants, she says we should take confidence from the emerging picture, with the evidence "strongly pointing" to the vaccines continuing to work really well, at least in terms of preventing serious illness and death.
At worst, there will be some continued low-level spread - but the vaccine programme's success means that is now less likely to translate into significant numbers of serious cases.
"We are in a really good position," Dr Cevik says. "We are de-risking Covid."
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Manchester United protests: Emotions have been simmering for 16 years - BBC Sport
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2021-05-02
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Protests at Manchester United's Old Trafford ground came just weeks after European Super League plans were thwarted - but emotions have been simmering for 16 years.
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It was at an entrance round the back of the Stretford End, away from the noise and the flares that accompanied the start of the Manchester United fans' protest at Old Trafford, that those who made it on to the pitch gained access.
Most were young lads in their 20s, coming down the hill in wave after wave. But not all.
There were women and older men too. One, probably in his late 50s or early 60s, wore a green and gold scarf and woolly hat - the colours of United's first shirts when they were formed as Newton Heath in 1878, and of the original anti-Glazer protests in 2010.
• None Football Daily podcast: All about the Man Utd protest
After he had left the stadium compound, he remained with those waiting for the United team bus that never arrived.
He was not angry and spoke calmly to fans and media in the same area, wanting to know the latest about what was happening on the other side of the ground, or around the team hotel, where he had been earlier.
Those fans, he felt, were more sinister than the ones at the stadium. But he didn't condemn them. He accepts they have a common goal. Emotions have been simmering for 16 years, so a bit of aggression is understandable, the theory went.
Exchanges like this - and people like that - underline the reason for what happened at Old Trafford.
A large protest was expected outside the ground before the match with historic rivals Liverpool - but no-one expected fans to force their way into the stadium and on to the pitch and for the match to be postponed.
It was the third major fans protest against the club and its owners in recent days following a protest at Old Trafford last Saturday and fans entering the club's training ground at Carrington the previous Thursday.
Like supporters of the other five 'big six' clubs, Manchester United's fans are angry about the European Super League proposals. They don't want it and will voice their opposition - just as fans of the other five English sides have done.
What sets United apart is that their fans are not surprised at the actions of their owners - the US-based Glazer family.
Indeed, to those fans, it merely underlines their view that the owners of their football club only care about money and that they have no affection for the world-famous 149-year-old institution they are in charge of.
If they did, the argument goes, they would never have landed the club with the enormous debt associated with their controversial £790m leveraged takeover in 2005.
Manchester United were a debt-free organisation when they were on the stock market prior to the Glazers buying the club. The fans believe the Glazers should have used their own money.
That debt currently stands at £455.5m, according to the club's latest accounts, which were released on 4 March, 2021. It is estimated that in general finance costs, interest and dividends, the Glazer takeover has cost United in excess of £1bn.
Some fans were so annoyed by the Glazer takeover they walked away from Manchester United to form their own club. FC United have not been without their own trials and tribulations over the past few years, but the Northern Premier League outfit remain a beacon for fan ownership.
And whilst their level of support has slipped from their early days, average attendances remain around the 2,000 mark, which put it in the top 30 non-league clubs in the entire country.
Of those who remained, some kept up their opposition. Many United fans were genuinely angry when Sir Alex Ferguson used to defend the owners. The Scot repeatedly said the Glazer family backed him in the transfer market and never offered criticism.
Those fans felt Ferguson's brilliance as a manager masked underlying issues around the money being invested in United's playing squad.
It is no surprise the 'green and gold' anti-Glazer campaign began in 2010, when United were experiencing a dip after three successive Premier League titles, nor that it fizzled out when Ferguson got his team playing like champions again and reached another Champions League final.
But for some, the sentiment never dimmed. Disenchantment with the Glazer stewardship of United has grown with every passing year since Ferguson retired in 2013, not just because the club's fortunes have slipped, but because despite the relative failure, tens of millions of pounds go out of the club, either directly to the family or because of the way they run United.
There is a counter-balance to this narrative.
The owners are responsible for the phenomenal rise in Manchester United's commercial revenue. They were the ones who aggressively pursued the regional approach, which every other similar sized club has followed.
The Glazers introduced a commercial plan which was different to any other club. Other than the major deals with Adidas, Chevrolet and others, they sell on a regional basis across the globe, so they have telecoms partners in USA and Canada, another in Africa, another in China. They recognised United were popular and maximised the popularity.
It can be argued, with some justification, that the Glazers are responsible for a significant proportion of United's rise in income and what they take out is only a percentage of it.
United sources never tire of drilling home the message that the money the club raises is done to improve the playing side, whether it be through big-money signings or academy prospects.
Beyond question, they have spent a lot of money on players. Whether they have bought the right ones is debatable though, and the Glazers are blamed by some for not putting the processes in place to get the recruitment right.
In recent times, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, a patron of the Manchester United Supporters Trust (Must), which has campaigned against the family, has, like Ferguson, been condemned for not criticising the owners.
Yet Solskjaer, when I asked him about the planned protests in the build-up to Sunday's game, said the fans' voice "needs to be heard".
That probably explains the wording of the club statement on Sunday night, which in addition to condemning those who put "other fans, staff and police in danger", also acknowledged their right to free expression and peaceful protest, in addition to highlighting their passion.
In the aftermath of the ESL's collapse, co-chairman Joel Glazer said he accepted there was a need for greater communication with supporters.
That said, he opted not to join an emergency fans forum on Friday when Must were amongst the signatories of a letter, read out to executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward, stating the fans did not trust or believe the owners.
It is doubtful whether bridges between the two sides can ever be built but even securing some sort of peace, however uneasy, may not be easy to achieve.
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Joseph Parker beats Derek Chisora by split decision after recovering from early knockdown - BBC Sport
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2021-05-02
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Joseph Parker recovers from being knocked down in the opening 10 seconds to beat Derek Chisora on points.
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Joseph Parker recovered from being knocked down in the opening 10 seconds to beat Derek Chisora on a split decision and keep alive hopes of a shot at the world heavyweight title.
The Briton floored New Zealander Parker at Manchester Arena with an overhand right to the temple.
But the former world champion turned the tide and landed combinations as the bout wore on, while Chisora tired.
It proved enough to earn a split decision 115-113 111-116 115-113.
Chisora, 37, felt aggrieved by the scoring and said: "I'm beyond getting upset now. It's difficult. I train hard. I put pressure on, this is the treatment I get from boxing.
"I was bringing it. I was doing more power punches and inside work. I won't let them slow me down. I will go again. I will not let them win. They want to see me retiring but I am not yet."
• None 'I decided to keep him in there' - Eubank Jr returns with win
Chisora had said he might withdraw from the fight because he had to walk to the ring before his opponent, a threat in keeping with the unpredictability he has served up in over 14 years as a professional.
Some have questioned why he still headlines pay-per-view cards after 10 previous career defeats but the looping right hand that sent Parker to the canvas served as an instant reminder of his threat.
As always, he looked to bulldoze his opponent with constant pressure but Parker - eight years his junior at 29 - was able to build momentum as Chisora slowly faded.
To Parker's credit, facing such pressure is mentally taxing but he stood up to both the knockdown and an early onslaught before beginning to land good combinations of his own.
In the seventh a one-two followed by a three-shot flurry sent Chisora back to the ropes and pointed to his vulnerability.
In the 10th Parker followed another one-two with an eye-catching short left hook and he teed off on Chisora again in the 12th as he closed in on a 29th win from 31 outings. Only British heavyweights Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte have bettered him.
Asked if winning a world title for a second time is a possibility, Parker said: "It's very achievable. I just have to get back to training. There's still a lot I can show.
"It was a very close fight. I thought it could go either way. He brought the smoke."
The former champion can look to bigger names but the stars at the top of the division possess natural size advantages that will make his task all the more tricky.
Chisora, in contrast, must search for a next move. He has shown time and again he can come up with something to go after.
BBC Sport boxing correspondent Mike Costello:"I made Parker the winner by three rounds but wouldn't mount a strong argument against the judge who favoured Chisora. It was compelling heavyweight boxing and - coming after Taylor-Jonas - just imagine a night like that with a crowd.
"Parker did well to recover so quickly from the early knockdown and for me his cleaner punching at long and mid-range was decisive. His durability and resilience were also factors and, given more time with his new trainer Andy Lee, there should be better to come.
"Chisora's reputation won't suffer in losing such a fight and the Parker camp have said there should be a rematch - not a difficult sell."
BBC Radio 5 Live boxing analyst Steve Bunce: "Should this be Derek's last fight? Can you get enough money for risking your reputation? If there is something out there where he can make the same money or close to what he made tonight, then yes.
"What I don't want to see is him reduced to third on the bill and be there as a test for somebody.
"If there's another heavyweight out there he can generate that type of money with, let him fight.
"I don't want to see Derek become an 'opponent' - he's better than that."
• None A group of hackers cause mayhem in Hollywood for Sony Pictures Entertainment
• None The Crowd Science team explores why it is a universal feeling
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Apple faces Epic Games in court - BBC News
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2021-05-02
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Epic’s antitrust lawsuit against the tech giant could decide the future of Apple's App Store.
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Technology
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Epic Games v Apple: What is going on?
After months of hype and warring words, Epic Games is finally getting its day in court with Apple.
The trial began on Monday - and is one of the most important in Apple's history.
Apple boss Tim Cook will be giving evidence, the first time he's given testimony at a trial.
At stake is the future of the App Store and the amount it charges developers - a wildly lucrative money spinner for the company.
The trial got off to a slightly chaotic start. The public hearing failed at first to mute those who were listening in via phone call, meaning calls from fans for the return of Fortnite to mobiles were accidentally broadcast.
The storm began in August last year, when Epic Games laid a trap for Apple.
Its hit game Fortnite implemented its own in-app payment - bypassing Apple's 30% charges.
But Epic Games was waiting for just that.
It slapped Apple with a 65-page lawsuit - and had even prepared a high production video, a spoof of Apple's iconic 1984 advert for the Apple Mac.
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Epic Games has for years claimed the charges imposed on it by Apple are extortionate.
Their argument is simple: that Apple's control over the App Store is anti-competitive.
It believes that developers should be able to make apps for smartphones without having to pay large sums to Apple (and to Google for Google Play purchases).
Spotify, Match and Tile are just a few of the many companies that have also claimed Apple's charges are unfair.
Apple is estimated to have made hundreds of millions of dollars from Fortnite alone in charges.
Epic Games' big argument is: if they don't want to pay, then where else do they go to sell their products?
Fortnite's new payment option led to the game being kicked off the App Store
Apple's App Store and Google's Google Play are the dominant global app stores, outside China.
Epic Games has tried to sell Fortnite away from these two stores. It tried to "sideload" the app on Android phones - to try and avoid Google's own 30% charge. However, not enough people downloaded it away from Google Play.
Epic Games' reluctant conclusion: if you want to make games for smartphones you have to be on either the App Store or Google Play.
But unwilling to lie down and accept the charges - which it calls an "Apple Tax" - Epic Games decided to sue Apple instead.
Worryingly for Apple, many of its App Store critics come from across the political divide.
In a Senate hearing two weeks ago, Apple's Chief Compliance Officer Kyle Andeer was grilled by lawmakers. Politicians of all stripes - usually so divided on policy - were united in their attacks on Apple.
Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Richard Blumenthal and Republicans Mike Lee and Josh Hawley all took up similar lines of questioning.
Senator Klobuchar said that Apple's App Store was a "literal monopoly".
And on Friday the European Union announced that it was charging Apple for its behaviour on the App Store.
The key question the judge will have to answer is whether Apple's App Store is an "essential facility", a sort of public utility that no one company should control.
"Everybody knows that Apple is in charge of what should be public rights of way. It would be easiest if the judge just rules in favour of Epic [Games], that would fix it," he says.
Apple can afford good lawyers though. So what's Apple's defence?
Firstly, Apple says it invented the App Store and as a private company it can charge what it wants.
It also says the 30% charge to developers is the industry standard for gaming, and competes not just with Google Play but with Microsoft, Steam, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo.
"In terms of the actual split, 70/30 is pretty standard across the board. One of the things that really stands out about Epic Games' argument is that they have no complaint whatsoever. It's all very hand wavy, and very much a PR argument, not a legal one."
Apple also says that its payment system is fair to smaller developers. It says 83% of apps and 76% of games on the App Store are free - developers pay no commission.
And they say that although their top rate charge is 30%, most developers pay no more than 15% in charges.
Apple argues it also oversees an App Store vetting process, making sure the Apple ecosystem isn't compromised by dodgy apps. That costs money.
However it's thought the amount that Apple spends on this process is a tiny fraction of the amount it receives from developers. Critics like Matt Stoller also question how effective Apple's vetting procedures are.
"There are all sorts of apps that have scams that Apple doesn't catch. So their arguments about safety and security are sort of nonsense," he says.
So what are Apple's chances? John Gruber thinks they're good.
"I do think that on legal grounds, Apple is in a very good position. But the risk is very high because [if they lost] it would disrupt the whole business model of the app store".
Matt Stoller says that antitrust cases are notoriously hard to predict.
"Antitrust law, as it's practiced in the US, is a complete mess. So we have no idea. The law basically depends on what the judge had for breakfast."
The trial is expected to conclude in the last week of May. However, even if Apple wins, the fight over how Apple runs its App Store will rage on.
James Clayton is the BBC's North America technology reporter based in San Francisco. Follow him on Twitter @jamesclayton5.
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Tesco staff win legal argument in equal pay fight - BBC News
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2021-06-03
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A court ruling brings Tesco shop workers a step closer to gaining equal pay with warehouse staff.
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Business
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Thousands of current and former Tesco workers have won a legal argument in their fight for equal pay.
The European Court of Justice has ruled that an EU law could be relied on in making equal pay claims against their employer.
Tesco workers, mostly women, have argued that they failed to receive equal pay for work of equal value with colleagues in its distribution centres who are mostly men.
They said this breached EU and UK laws.
Tesco, the UK's biggest retailer, and law firm Leigh Day, acting on behalf of the workers, sought clarification from the Court of Justice of the European Union.
They asked the court to rule on a specific aspect of European law - whether the so-called "single source" test applies to businesses in the UK.
Under EU law, a worker can be compared with somebody working in a different establishment if a "single source" has the power to correct the difference in pay.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled that Asda shop workers can compare their roles with those of their colleagues in distribution centres for the purposes of equal pay. This ruling mainly focused on the UK legal test for comparability.
According to Leigh Day, the latest decision reinforces the Supreme Court's ruling and makes it extremely difficult for other supermarkets to argue the roles of shop workers cannot be compared with those of their colleagues in distribution centres.
Kiran Dauka, a partner in the employment team at Leigh Day, said: "This judgement reinforces the Supreme Court's ruling that the roles of shop floor workers can be compared to those of their colleagues in distribution centres for the purposes of equal pay.
"For a long time, employers have argued that UK law in this area is unclear, but this judgment is simple: if there is a single body responsible for ensuring equality, the roles are comparable.
"Clarification from the CJEU confirms that this single source test can be relied upon by people in the UK bringing an equal value claim. This means that employers can no longer hide behind the grey areas of UK law.
"It's time for supermarkets to accept that the roles of shop floor workers and distribution centre workers are comparable."
Pam Jenkins, who works at Tesco, said: "To get a judgement confirming shop floor workers can use an easier legal test to compare their jobs to male colleagues in distribution is uplifting.
"I've always been proud to work at Tesco, but knowing that male colleagues working in distribution centres are being paid more is demoralising.
"I'm hopeful that Tesco will recognise the contribution shop floor workers make to the business and reflect that in our pay."
The legal test for comparability is only the first of three stages within Asda's overall pay claim, which is expected to take several years to conclude.
Leigh Day is also handing similar equal pay claims against Sainsbury's, Tesco, Morrisons and Co-op, which are not as far advanced.
A Tesco spokesperson said: "The jobs in our stores and distribution centres are different. These roles require different skills and demands which lead to variations in pay - but this has absolutely nothing to do with gender.
"We reward our colleagues fairly for the jobs they do and work hard to ensure that the pay and benefits we offer are fair, competitive and sustainable.
"These claims are extremely complex and will take many years to reach a conclusion. We continue to strongly defend these claims."
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G7 summit: Why does it matter? - BBC News
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2021-06-13
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The Cornish meeting will offer glimpses of our leaders and snapshots of the relationships they forge.
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UK Politics
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Do summits like this matter? "Occasionally!" comes the answer from a former government insider who worked for years at the very top.
They warn that global get-togethers - however glamorous the location, however acute any particular political emergency, however good the freebies for the thousands of attendees - can descend into 'waffelage'.
As the most powerful elected people in the world prepare to occupy a tiny Cornish bay for a few days, will this be an occasion that makes a difference to any of our lives or will it be waffle in the end?
A senior diplomat closely involved in the preparation is confident, "this will be very meaningful."
It is the first time the new American president will have met the relatively new British prime minister in person - a big moment by any measure.
And it's the first time that the leaders of the world's biggest democracies have gathered like this since their countries were hit by a genuine emergency - Covid.
This current cast of leaders, particularly with a new boss in the White House, has given the impression in the run up to this meeting that they want genuinely to work together as the pandemic, while still with us, begins to fade.
The next few days will show whether they really mean it or not.
Even in the age of video calls and instant messages pinging their way around the world, summits do matter, because leaders and their officials can talk face to face.
Real business can get done during "the hallway conversations, the drinks at the bar", the diplomat says.
Huge public attention puts the pressure on, and the moment where they all wave goodbye and climb back into their limos or helicopters provides a deadline to decide.
Without doubt, real life contact makes a difference to what is decided.
One former senior figure in Theresa May's administration recalls a moment of jeopardy at a summit with President Trump.
He was planning to leave early, without signing up to the form of words that the other nations wanted.
The former official told me he was ushered into what was described as a "secure broom cupboard" with the then Australian leader, Malcolm Turnbull and the French President, Emmanuel Macron.
It's said they remained locked in argument in the tiny room, until Mr Trump agreed.
The traditional G7 "family photo" taken in Canada, 2018
At a different G7 meeting in 2018, again the other nations were struggling to get Mr Trump and his officials to agree on the principles the others wanted to publish.
The dispute was over if and how the final document would refer to the "international rules based order" - the loose jargon for how democracies agree to behave and work with each other through shared institutions like the UN.
Without a specific definition of what the "rules based order" really meant though, the US was reluctant.
So a small group of leaders themselves and a few key officials haggled face-to-face with the president and his powerful adviser, John Bolton, outside the formal meetings to do a deal.
The compromise was that the document would refer to "a" rules based order, not "the" when referring to the "international rules based order".
At a summit, leaders of the free world, and a few of their close aides, spent precious time arguing over the use of the definite or indefinite article...
And some of the broader tensions during that meeting were captured in a classic photograph.
Summits are the product of months and months of work by the hosts, and are carefully planned to within an inch of their lives and are huge opportunities for countries to show off.
Covering the meetings over the years I've witnessed astonishing firework displays in China, the Argentine first lady hosting an elaborate tea party for leaders' spouses where even the air kissing seemed to be choreographed, parades, concerts, and plenty of the events themselves that are designed to show the leaders' interactions to the world.
Summits have their own language too - the 'family photos' - the moments where the leaders have to take pre-appointed places for official snaps to be taken.
The 'bilats' or 'trilats' - one-to-one, or one-to-two meetings where the bond, or lack of, between the politicians is so blindingly obvious.
The 'communique' - the final document that leaders sign up to that's published at the end; prepared for months in advance by the 'sherpas', senior officials for each country, but the final version agreed only by the leaders themselves at the last minute.
But when the most senior politicians in the world and their most senior staff are in essence locked down together for a few days it is those unscripted moments that stick in the mind.
Bumping into a European prime minister who was wandering around a corridor in Brussels, who seemed lost, but said yes to an interview then and there in the dingy basement, filmed on a phone - that made the news.
One very early morning in a hot, foreign clime when trying to get some sea air to wake up after only a couple of hours of sleep, I encountered a very prominent official on the beach who rather mysteriously had company at that time of day.
One of their colleagues, seconds later, came leaping out of the sea having been confronted by some jellyfish - ending the need for a longer, awkward conversation.
When a tense European summit dragged on with David Cameron, while we hacks were still hanging around inside waiting for news, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel had had enough and popped out with her team for chips.
And at the prime minister's own first summit in charge in Biarritz he went for his own swim off the French Atlantic coast.
Of course, Boris Johnson being Boris Johnson, he didn't keep it to himself, but in classic style he used his swim out to a large rock as a metaphor for supporters for his hoped for heroics on Brexit.
One diplomat expressed concern at the notion of the leaders taking a dip this time round worrying about the all important 'optics'.
The summit will be Mrs Johnson's first official public engagement since her wedding to the prime minister.
But alongside the very serious hoped for progress on vaccines, on Covid recovery, on the climate, on reaffirming the links between the most powerful democracies in the world after the Trump Presidency, the events that have not been planned might be the ones that stay in the mind.
The next few days will also see the first official public engagements of the new Mrs Carrie Johnson.
Like it or not, always nicknamed the "leaders' wives" summit, the "spousal programme" as it's officially termed is a universe all of its own.
This time, without question, this G7 should be an occasion that matters, for the serious discussions that are due to take place.
The government hopes for strong confirmation of the relationship between the UK and the US, commitments to help get vaccines to the developing world, and for progress on climate change.
They plan also for convincing conversations with the other nations that have been invited, what the prime minister is terming the "football team" - the "D 11" - the G7 plus India (attending virtually), South Korea, South Africa and Australia too, forging links ever more important among democracies in the face of growing influence from China.
But this summit will also matter for the glimpses of our leaders, and snapshots of the vital relationships they forge.
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Britney Spears wants her conservatorship to end: What happens next? - BBC News
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2021-06-25
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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As lawyers analyse the latest developments, the singer apologises for keeping fans in the dark.
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Entertainment & Arts
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The star says she wants her conservatorship to end - but how realistic are her prospects?
Britney Spears has apologised to fans for "pretending like I've been OK", while suffering under what she calls an "abusive" conservatorship.
The star told a US court on Wednesday that she wants the conservatorship - which controls her personal life and finances - to end after 13 years.
She revealed the arrangement requires her to use birth control and prevents her from marrying her boyfriend.
On Instagram, she said she had not spoken out before due to "pride".
"I'm bringing this to people's attention because I don't want people to think my life is perfect because it's definitely not at all, and if you have read anything about me in the news this week... you obviously really know now it's not," she said.
Spears apologised to fans for hiding the truth from them, adding: "I did it because of my pride and I was embarrassed to share what happened to me... but honestly who doesn't want to capture there [sic] Instagram in a fun light!"
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The 39-year-old has been under the conservatorship since 2008, when concerns over her mental health prompted her father, Jamie Spears, to petition the court for legal authority over his daughter's life.
In court on Wednesday, Britney read a prepared statement asking for the arrangement to end.
"I've been in denial. I've been in shock. I am traumatised," she said in the emotional, 23-minute speech. "I just want my life back."
In response, Britney's father said he always had her best interests at heart.
So what are the chances of the conservatorship coming to an end? We asked two lawyers with experience of family law and conservatorships in the US - Alexander Ripps of Bohm Wildish & Matsen, and Christopher Melcher of Walzer Melcher - for their analysis.
How effective was Britney in arguing her case?
Christopher Melcher: From a legal strategy standpoint, I don't know that her statement helped her that much. It helped us, as the public, to know what she wants, and ended the speculation over whether she was under this conservatorship voluntarily. She made that crystal clear.
If I were preparing her, I would have coached her to present herself in a calm way, acknowledging that she did have problems 13 years ago that justified protection; showing awareness of what those problems were; and articulating the steps she's taken to make sure that she doesn't find herself in that situation again. That would provide assurance to the court that she doesn't need that help.
If it was a calm presentation, the court would struggle to find a reason why this conservatorship is needed. But we did see a more explosive, emotional, raw statement from Britney. I understand why she would feel that way, but I don't know that she did herself any favours.
Alexander Ripps: Based on my reading of the transcript I think it was effective. If you cut through it all, she said in unequivocal terms that she wants the conservatorship terminated.
While acknowledging she still has issues to work through, she has now directly placed her opposition to the conservatorship in front of the court. The bar for conservatorship is meant to be very high; and if Britney can show that her mental condition has improved since the conservatorship was put in place, the court should re-evaluate the need for the conservatorship.
Britney says she's being prevented from marrying her boyfriend Sam Asghari
What is the next step, from a legal standpoint?
Christopher Melcher: So, Wednesday's hearing was just to hear from Britney. She made it clear that she wants to end the conservatorship but she hasn't asked to do so formally. The next step is to file a petition to terminate the order - and then the court would have a hearing.
Alexander Ripps: In the petition, Britney would have to state facts showing that the conservatorship is no longer required or that the grounds for establishing the conservatorship no longer exist. Once the petition is filed, a hearing date would be set. At some point prior to the hearing, the court investigator should interview Britney and then submit a report to the court. Of course, interested parties would be allowed to file their objections.
Christopher Melcher: Britney commented on that. She said that she was opposed to being evaluated. So the court can order the evaluation - but it can't physically force her to go there and answer questions. If Britney doesn't get evaluated, the court can consider her refusal to do so as a grounds for denying her petition to terminate [the conservatorship]. So we'll see how that plays out.
She said in court that she had researched previous conservatorship cases, and there have been instances where an evaluation has not been required. Is that true, in your experience?
Christopher Melcher: The court is not required to have one. To me, placing an adult under conservatorship is an extreme measure. This is taking away a person's liberty to make decisions that ordinarily an adult would make for themselves. We shouldn't do that for someone unless they're gravely disabled - developmentally disabled, unable to care for themselves, or resist undue influence.
I think a judge should be able to tell that pretty quickly, just by interviewing someone. If they're able to have a 30-minute conversation with the court, we can tell a lot from that. And I do wonder what is an evaluation really going to reveal.
The star told the court she had been forced to tour against her will
Britney's lawyer requested that any further hearings will be held in private, so could this be the last we hear about the arguments in public?
Christopher Melcher: That was a surprise from the testimony on Wednesday - that it wasn't in a closed session. I was hoping, for Britney's sake, that the court would close the courtroom to the public, because the nature of this conservatorship is highly personal. It involves medical issues, mental health issues, conflict with her father. I don't think it's healthy for Britney to have all that information blasted out in public and to be critiqued and repeated.
I suspect most people who find themselves under a conservatorship would protest that it's unfair. Has that been your experience?
Christopher Melcher: That's exactly right. The conservatorship, by its nature, is one adult controlling another adult. And anyone who's aware enough of their situation would protest about that, probably.
The question is whether it's necessary. For Britney, I don't know what the evidence is going to be when she does make a motion to terminate. Can she bring in acquaintances that have seen her daily activities, who can attest that there's been no erratic behaviour? Or has she been isolated so much that she doesn't have any of those favourable witnesses?
And will the conservators testify as to observations they've had of her behaviour that would justify the court in continuing the conservatorship? Are there recordings of Britney, maybe in a private setting, that would show, one way or the other, how she's behaving? These are all things that are going to be coming out
Is there any way her conservators could prevent her from filing a petition to end the conservatorship?
Alexander Ripps: No. The right of a conservatee to file a petition to terminate the conservatorship is based on the statutory provision of California Probate Code Sec. 1861(a).
What sort of arguments could they mount to keep the arrangement in place?
Alexander Ripps: Keep in mind that there are two elements to the conservatorship: Conservatorship of the person and conservatorship of the estate [ie Britney's finances]. Conservatorship of the estate can be warranted for someone who is substantially unable to manage their financial resources, or someone who is substantially unable to resist fraud or undue influence. This is where I think there has potentially been a disconnect with the public. I don't think the public has been privy to all the information as it relates to what was going on Britney's life that may have made her susceptible to undue influence.
Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.
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George Floyd death: Five key moments from the Derek Chauvin trial - BBC News
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2021-06-25
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Here are key elements of a trial that gripped the US.
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US & Canada
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The critical moments of the trial so far
The death of George Floyd, a 48-year-old black man, while he was being restrained by a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, during an arrest in Minneapolis in May 2020, shocked the world and sparked global protests about racism and police brutality.
Chauvin's three-week trial - on charges of murder and manslaughter - has now resulted in his conviction.
Here are five key moments from the trial which heard from 45 witnesses and saw hours of video footage filmed by bystanders.
Some of the most powerful testimony came in the first days of the trial when witnesses spoke of what they saw that day.
Darnella, who was 17 at the time of Mr Floyd's death, filmed the video that went viral around the world. She told the jury there were nights when she stayed up "apologising to George Floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting and not saving his life".
"When I look at George Floyd, I look at my dad. I look at my brothers, I look at my cousins, my uncles. Because they are all black," she said.
Emotional testimony also came from Charles McMillian, 61, who had been among the first on the scene and had tried to persuade Mr Floyd to get in the police car.
He broke down in tears watching graphic footage of the arrest in court, saying he had felt "helpless" as events unfolded and explained that he had confronted Chauvin after Mr Floyd was taken away in an ambulance because "what I watched was wrong".
The defence has argued that the presence of bystanders influenced Chauvin's actions that day. The court heard from one Minneapolis police officer, Peter Chang, that the crowd had been "very aggressive to the officers", while Nicole McKenzie, who trains the city's police on providing medical care, said the presence of bystanders at an arrest could make it harder for officers to see signs of distress in those they detained.
Another powerful moment came when Mr Floyd's girlfriend of three years, Courteney Ross, took the stand.
She described their first meeting, in the lobby of a Salvation Army homeless shelter, where Mr Floyd worked as a security guard, and how he had been devastated by his mother's death in 2018.
Ms Ross also told the court they both suffered from chronic pain, which led to an off-and-on struggle with opioid addiction.
"We got addicted and tried really hard to break that addiction many times," she testified.
One of the defence's arguments has been that Mr Floyd died largely because of complications from the opioids and methamphetamine he had in his system at the time of his arrest.
Another key issue at the heart of this trial has been whether Derek Chauvin violated policies on restraint when he kneeled on George Floyd's neck for nine and a half minutes.
The head of Minneapolis police, Chief Medaria Arradondo, was one of the prosecution's most high-profile witnesses and had fired Chauvin a day after the arrest.
He told the court that the police officer should have stopped applying "that level of force" the moment Mr Floyd stopped resisting. "It's not part of our training and it's certainly not part of our ethics or values" to continue with such force, he said.
Some 45 people gave evidence during the trial including (from left to right) Dr Martin Tobin, Charles McMillian and Courteney Ross
Defence witness Barry Brodd, a use-of-force expert, said Chauvin had been "justified" and acted "with objective reasonableness" because of the "imminent threat" Mr Floyd posed in resisting arrest.
However, he did concede under cross-examination that the dangers of positional asphyxia - not being able to breathe in a certain position - were well-known among law enforcers.
The cause of Mr Floyd's death was arguably central to this trial, with the prosecution maintaining he died from asphyxia while the defence pointed to Mr Floyd's drug use and general poor health.
Dr Martin Tobin, an expert in pulmonary medicine, used video footage to explain what was happening to Mr Floyd's breathing during the nine and a half minutes he lay under Chauvin's knee.
Even "a healthy person, subjected to what Mr Floyd was subjected to, would have died," he said.
A key witness for the defence, forensic pathologist David Fowler, said Mr Floyd's death should have been classified as "undetermined" rather than as a homicide, because there were "so many conflicting different potential mechanisms".
Complicating factors included Mr Floyd's drug use and possible exposure to carbon monoxide poisoning from the police car's exhaust, said Dr Fowler, who was chief medical examiner for the state of Maryland until his retirement in 2019.
However, under cross-examination he agreed that Mr Floyd should have been given immediate medical attention when he went into cardiac arrest, as there still was a chance to save his life.
Just before the defence rested its case, the man on trial - Derek Chauvin - confirmed to the judge that he would not testify.
"I will invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege today," he said, referring to the constitutional right to remain silent in fear of self-incrimination.
Asked by the judge whether this was his decision alone, and whether anyone else had unfairly influenced his decision, Chauvin responded: "No promises or threats, your honour."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The three key arguments used by Chauvin's defence
Chauvin pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree unintentional murder - for which he could be jailed for up to 40 years - third-degree murder, and manslaughter.
The jury took under a day to return a unanimous verdict convicting him of all charges.
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Rudy Giuliani has New York law licence suspended - BBC News
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2021-06-25
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The former New York mayor and lawyer to Donald Trump is reprimanded over US election allegations.
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US & Canada
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Rudy Giuliani was admitted to the New York state bar more than 50 years ago
Rudy Giuliani has had his law licence suspended in New York for making "demonstrably false and misleading" claims around the 2020 US election.
Mr Giuliani, 77, has been a mayor of New York City and a personal lawyer to former US President Donald Trump.
Mr Trump refused to admit losing the November election to Joe Biden and Mr Giuliani went to court to overturn the result, claiming it had been fixed.
On Thursday, the ex-president defended him as "a great American patriot".
Hours after a New York appeals court ruled Mr Giuliani had lied about electoral fraud to the public and in legal statements, Mr Trump repeated the claims again without providing new evidence.
The decision, made by a five-judge panel, is temporary - pending the outcome of a full disciplinary hearing.
Since the election Mr Trump and his allies have filed dozens of lawsuits alleging voter fraud in last year's elections. All but one have been dismissed by US courts, or withdrawn by prosecutors.
Lawyers for Mr Giuliani said they were disappointed with the New York ruling.
"Our client does not pose a present danger to the public interest," they said in a joint statement. "We believe that once the issues are fully explored at a hearing Mr Giuliani will be reinstated as a valued member of the legal profession that he has served so well in his many capacities for so many years."
In their decision, the judges said Mr Giuliani had made several false statements about voting in the states of Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania - including claims that hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots and other votes had been improperly counted.
The court rejected Mr Giuliani's argument that investigations into his conduct violated his right to free speech. It also suggested the suspension may eventually be permanent.
The suspension itself marks a big change in fortunes for Mr Giuliani, who once had a prominent legal and political career in New York.
He was admitted to the state bar in 1969 and eventually served as US Attorney for the Southern District of New York under the Ronald Reagan administration.
He became the city's mayor in 1994 and later earned widespread national praise for his response to the 11 September 2001 attacks.
Thursday's development comes only months after Mr Giuliani's home and office were raided by the FBI as part of an unrelated investigation into his alleged dealings with Ukraine.
• None Hang on, why was Trump impeached again?
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Keira Bell: Puberty blockers give children options, Trust says - BBC News
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2021-06-22
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An appeal is examining whether under-16s can consent to using puberty blockers.
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Health
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Keira Bell said the gender identity clinic should have challenged her more
The Court of Appeal is considering whether under-16s can give informed consent to medical treatment that delays the onset of puberty.
The appeal is brought by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.
It says puberty blockers give children distressed by their birth sex time to consider "options".
But a representative for Keira Bell, who brought the original case, says children cannot understand all of the treatment's implications.
Judgement is reserved for a later date.
The two-day appeal also includes submissions from LGBT and other interested groups.
In December 2020, the High Court ruled that under-16s were unlikely to be able to give informed consent to what it described as "experimental" treatment, which is sometimes used to pause puberty in children experiencing gender dysphoria.
Keira Bell, one of the claimants in the case, started taking puberty blockers at the age of 16 after being referred to the Tavistock and Portman Trust, which runs the UK's only Gender Identity Development Service (Gids).
Now in her mid-20s, says she regrets her decision to transition to a male, and says the clinic should have challenged her more.
Speaking outside the Appeal Court on Wednesday morning, she said: "I'm always hopeful, but the result could go any way."
The Tavistock has argued throughout that it provides safe treatment and puts the best interests of young people and their families first.
On Wednesday, Fenella Moss QC, representing the Trust, argued that the High Court's original judgement was wrong to find the use of puberty blockers for gender dysphoria was "experimental".
Ms Morris said that puberty blockers are deemed fully reversible in international guidelines, and that "not providing treatment means that the child remains in a position of distress and difficulties in making choices about what to do next".
She argued that it is not inevitable that a young person would continue on to taking cross-sex hormones - which the NHS advises cause some irreversible changes - after puberty blockers.
Children and young people are told about effects on their fertility that may be caused by later stages of transition, she added.
"There is no suggestion anywhere that this is one pathway... there is no shying away from explaining to children and young people what the possibilities are."
The trust that runs the gender identity clinic is appealing the decision
Jeremy Hyam QC, representing Ms Bell and Mrs A, the other claimant, argued that the appeal should fail as it did not find any "material errors" in the original ruling.
In written arguments, he said: "The need for a child to understand, retain and weigh up the salient facts is all the more important because, unlike life-saving cancer treatment, there is much uncertainty as to what the benefits of puberty blockers actually are."
In court on Wednesday, he added: "Right at the heart of what the court was concerned about was how can it be said that children of 10, 11, 12 have any proper conception of what sexual function is?"
Nine organisations or individuals - including human rights group Liberty and The Endocrine Society - have given evidence in the appeal.
In a separate case in March, the Family Division of the High Court ruled that parents could give consent for under-16s to access puberty blockers.
But it said it may be that "additional safeguards" should be put in place, such as the requirement for an independent second opinion.
Puberty blockers are drugs that suppress the release of hormones produced in much bigger quantities during puberty.
They are sometimes used to treat gender dysphoria, which the NHS describes as "a sense of unease that a person may have because of a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity".
Gids says puberty blockers allow a young person "time to consider their options and to continue to explore their developing gender identity before making decisions about irreversible forms of treatment".
It advises that while the effects are physically reversible if treatment is stopped, the full psychological effects - or whether it alters the course of adolescent brain development - aren't known.
The NHS says "little is known" about the long term side effects in young people with gender dysphoria, including whether the treatment affects the development of the teenage brain or children's bones.
Puberty blockers are also used to treat conditions which cause premature puberty in much younger children.
This is the most contentious of areas.
Partly because opinions will vary hugely on the age at which a child can understand the impact of a decision made in their early teens on the life they will lead as an adult.
And partly because at its heart lie the futures of young people struggling with their gender identity, who may already feel marginalised, misunderstood and harmed by delays in treatment.
The Court of Appeal hearing has so far revolved around two key areas.
Firstly, whether under-16's can truly consent to puberty blockers when their feelings about, for instance, their fertility may change substantially in the next decade.
Secondly, whether that treatment is experimental. The High Court concluded it was. The Tavistock disagrees, throughout it has pointed to prescription of the drugs by doctors going back more than twenty years.
It will be for the Appeal Court to settle these arguments, but the case has already underlined the importance of more research in this complex area.
In the December ruling, Dame Victoria Sharp, sitting with Lord Justice Lewis and Mrs Justice Lieven, said: "It is doubtful that a child aged 14 or 15 could understand and weigh the long-term risks and consequences of the administration of puberty blockers."
The judges added it was "highly unlikely" that children aged 13 and under would have the capacity to give consent.
Mermaids, which provides services for young people and their families who struggle with their gender identity, says that decision, "put a further strain on the already marginalised transgender and non-binary community and their families".
"We believe strongly that trans and non-binary children should have the same rights over their healthcare decisions as anyone else, in line with their evolving understanding," the charity said in a statement.
Transgender Trend, an organisation made up of parents, professionals and academics who are "concerned about the current trend to diagnose children as transgender," has submitted evidence to the hearing.
Founder Stephanie Davies-Arai said: "Children do not have the maturity or life experience to give informed consent to medical interventions with such devastating long-term consequences and we hope and expect that the Appeal Court will uphold the High Court's judgement".
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Covid: Everyone can see hospitalisations going up, says PM - BBC News
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2021-06-10
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Boris Johnson says vaccine protection is key to unlocking, as number in hospital with Covid hits 1,000.
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Health
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Soldiers guide members of the public to a vaccination centre in Bolton
Boris Johnson says it is clear that Covid cases are rising and hospitalisations increasing, as a decision on 21 June unlocking looms.
Official figures show more than 1,000 people in the UK are currently in hospital with the disease.
The PM said he needed to assess the extent to which the vaccine rollout has built up protection in the population before progressing with the roadmap.
And he said again that the decision for England would be "driven by the data".
The number of people in hospital with the virus has risen above 1,000 for the first time since mid-May.
Scientists believe this could be the start of the third wave, caused by the Delta variant.
The size of that wave depends on how effective vaccines are at protecting people - and that is still uncertain.
The government is due to decide on 14 June whether to lift the last remaining restrictions in England.
But government sources are more downbeat about the prospect of the easing going ahead the following week.
Speaking in Cornwall ahead of the G7 summit, the prime minister said there are "arguments being made one way or another" as to whether all restrictions can be lifted as planned.
"What everybody can see very clearly is that cases are going up and, in some places, hospitalisations are going up.
"What we need to assess is the extent to which the vaccine rollout, which has been phenomenal, has built up enough protection in the population in order for us to go ahead to the next stage."
Mr Johnson said ministers would consider the data before deciding on the next stage of the unlocking
Mr Johnson added: "The reason we've been doing the steps on the roadmap with five-week intervals is to give us time to look at all the data as it comes in and access the state of the pandemic before we go forward to the next step.
"So on Monday that four-week period will be up - and we'll look at where we are."
It comes as one million under 30s booked vaccine appointments in England on Tuesday - and data showed more than half the adult population is fully vaccinated.
Prof Neil Ferguson, virus modeller from Imperial College London whose predictions were key to the first lockdown in March 2020, has said that delaying unlocking would allow more people to be vaccinated.
While a first dose gives some protection against the Delta variant, first detected in India, the second dose appears to give much more.
Another 7,540 people tested positive for the coronavirus in the UK on Wednesday - the highest daily number of cases since the end of February, the latest government figures show.
There were also a further six deaths reported within 28 days of a positive test. A week ago there were 4,330 cases and 12 deaths.
A total of 1,024 people are now being treated in hospital in the UK, up 69 on the previous figure.
To date, most of those in hospital have not been vaccinated or had only one dose, with very few fully vaccinated.
Prof Ferguson said it was still not clear how the rise in cases would translate into hospitalisations and it would take a few more weeks to find out.
It was always expected cases would rise at this stage - indoor mixing is the move that allows the virus to spread most easily.
But what's concerning government scientists is how quickly cases are going up because of the Delta variant, and how that has begun to translate into hospitalisations.
The hope was the vaccination success would lead to a slower increase in infections and hospital admissions would be flatter.
Vaccines have weakened the link between the two. The rate of admission seems to be about half of what it was in September when infection levels were last climbing like this.
But that may not be enough. One hope is the rise in infections could fizzle out given the immunity that has built up in the population.
And there are suggestions those admitted now are not as sick as those admitted last year. Patients appear to be younger and not needing as much treatment.
But the lack of certainty means government scientists are suggesting extra time may be needed before the complete unlocking of society.
This will have a double benefit - allowing more time to gather data and increasing the numbers vaccinated.
Experts say there is still much about the Delta variant and how well vaccines work against it that is unknown.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock previously said the variant was 40% more transmissible than the Alpha (or Kent) variant, but Prof Ferguson's "best estimate" is 60%.
"Almost certainly I think deaths probably will be lower [than the second wave] - the vaccines are having a highly protective effect, cases in hospital now are milder - but it still could be quite worrying," Prof Ferguson said.
The rises in hospital cases are mainly driven by increases in Scotland and the north-west of England.
This is where cases have been rising for the longest in the UK in the early stages of this third wave.
Vaccines and tests are being offered more quickly to people in Greater Manchester and Lancashire in a bid to suppress cases of the new variant, as Bolton has been able to do.
The town saw a recent drop in infection rates and the government is now planning the same approach in other parts of the region.
Meanwhile, a record million jabs were booked on Tuesday when those aged 25 to 29 became eligible for the vaccine in England, according to new figures.
The NHS in England said 100,000 appointments were being booked every hour at the height of the surge.
Sir Simon Stevens, its chief executive, said bookings reaching an all-time high showed enthusiasm for the vaccination programme "remains strong".
He added: "The obvious enthusiasm of younger adults to get their jab has blown out of the water the suggestion that people in their 20s might not come forward to protect themselves and their loved ones."
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G7 summit: Why does it matter? - BBC News
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2021-06-10
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The Cornish meeting will offer glimpses of our leaders and snapshots of the relationships they forge.
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UK Politics
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Do summits like this matter? "Occasionally!" comes the answer from a former government insider who worked for years at the very top.
They warn that global get-togethers - however glamorous the location, however acute any particular political emergency, however good the freebies for the thousands of attendees - can descend into 'waffelage'.
As the most powerful elected people in the world prepare to occupy a tiny Cornish bay for a few days, will this be an occasion that makes a difference to any of our lives or will it be waffle in the end?
A senior diplomat closely involved in the preparation is confident, "this will be very meaningful."
It is the first time the new American president will have met the relatively new British prime minister in person - a big moment by any measure.
And it's the first time that the leaders of the world's biggest democracies have gathered like this since their countries were hit by a genuine emergency - Covid.
This current cast of leaders, particularly with a new boss in the White House, has given the impression in the run up to this meeting that they want genuinely to work together as the pandemic, while still with us, begins to fade.
The next few days will show whether they really mean it or not.
Even in the age of video calls and instant messages pinging their way around the world, summits do matter, because leaders and their officials can talk face to face.
Real business can get done during "the hallway conversations, the drinks at the bar", the diplomat says.
Huge public attention puts the pressure on, and the moment where they all wave goodbye and climb back into their limos or helicopters provides a deadline to decide.
Without doubt, real life contact makes a difference to what is decided.
One former senior figure in Theresa May's administration recalls a moment of jeopardy at a summit with President Trump.
He was planning to leave early, without signing up to the form of words that the other nations wanted.
The former official told me he was ushered into what was described as a "secure broom cupboard" with the then Australian leader, Malcolm Turnbull and the French President, Emmanuel Macron.
It's said they remained locked in argument in the tiny room, until Mr Trump agreed.
The traditional G7 "family photo" taken in Canada, 2018
At a different G7 meeting in 2018, again the other nations were struggling to get Mr Trump and his officials to agree on the principles the others wanted to publish.
The dispute was over if and how the final document would refer to the "international rules based order" - the loose jargon for how democracies agree to behave and work with each other through shared institutions like the UN.
Without a specific definition of what the "rules based order" really meant though, the US was reluctant.
So a small group of leaders themselves and a few key officials haggled face-to-face with the president and his powerful adviser, John Bolton, outside the formal meetings to do a deal.
The compromise was that the document would refer to "a" rules based order, not "the" when referring to the "international rules based order".
At a summit, leaders of the free world, and a few of their close aides, spent precious time arguing over the use of the definite or indefinite article...
And some of the broader tensions during that meeting were captured in a classic photograph.
Summits are the product of months and months of work by the hosts, and are carefully planned to within an inch of their lives and are huge opportunities for countries to show off.
Covering the meetings over the years I've witnessed astonishing firework displays in China, the Argentine first lady hosting an elaborate tea party for leaders' spouses where even the air kissing seemed to be choreographed, parades, concerts, and plenty of the events themselves that are designed to show the leaders' interactions to the world.
Summits have their own language too - the 'family photos' - the moments where the leaders have to take pre-appointed places for official snaps to be taken.
The 'bilats' or 'trilats' - one-to-one, or one-to-two meetings where the bond, or lack of, between the politicians is so blindingly obvious.
The 'communique' - the final document that leaders sign up to that's published at the end; prepared for months in advance by the 'sherpas', senior officials for each country, but the final version agreed only by the leaders themselves at the last minute.
But when the most senior politicians in the world and their most senior staff are in essence locked down together for a few days it is those unscripted moments that stick in the mind.
Bumping into a European prime minister who was wandering around a corridor in Brussels, who seemed lost, but said yes to an interview then and there in the dingy basement, filmed on a phone - that made the news.
One very early morning in a hot, foreign clime when trying to get some sea air to wake up after only a couple of hours of sleep, I encountered a very prominent official on the beach who rather mysteriously had company at that time of day.
One of their colleagues, seconds later, came leaping out of the sea having been confronted by some jellyfish - ending the need for a longer, awkward conversation.
When a tense European summit dragged on with David Cameron, while we hacks were still hanging around inside waiting for news, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel had had enough and popped out with her team for chips.
And at the prime minister's own first summit in charge in Biarritz he went for his own swim off the French Atlantic coast.
Of course, Boris Johnson being Boris Johnson, he didn't keep it to himself, but in classic style he used his swim out to a large rock as a metaphor for supporters for his hoped for heroics on Brexit.
One diplomat expressed concern at the notion of the leaders taking a dip this time round worrying about the all important 'optics'.
The summit will be Mrs Johnson's first official public engagement since her wedding to the prime minister.
But alongside the very serious hoped for progress on vaccines, on Covid recovery, on the climate, on reaffirming the links between the most powerful democracies in the world after the Trump Presidency, the events that have not been planned might be the ones that stay in the mind.
The next few days will also see the first official public engagements of the new Mrs Carrie Johnson.
Like it or not, always nicknamed the "leaders' wives" summit, the "spousal programme" as it's officially termed is a universe all of its own.
This time, without question, this G7 should be an occasion that matters, for the serious discussions that are due to take place.
The government hopes for strong confirmation of the relationship between the UK and the US, commitments to help get vaccines to the developing world, and for progress on climate change.
They plan also for convincing conversations with the other nations that have been invited, what the prime minister is terming the "football team" - the "D 11" - the G7 plus India (attending virtually), South Korea, South Africa and Australia too, forging links ever more important among democracies in the face of growing influence from China.
But this summit will also matter for the glimpses of our leaders, and snapshots of the vital relationships they forge.
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Christopher Kapessa: CPS river death decision review allowed - BBC News
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2021-06-10
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Christopher Kapessa, 14, died when he was reportedly pushed into a river.
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Wales
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The Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute over Christopher Kapessa's death
A High Court judge has ruled a family can challenge prosecutors for failing to charge a boy who allegedly caused another teenager's river death.
Christopher Kapessa was reportedly pushed into the River Cynon in Rhondda Cynon Taf in 2019.
Although police found evidence he was pushed, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided not to prosecute.
Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb allowed an application by Christopher's mother Alina Joseph for a judicial review.
"To achieve permission, there must be properly arguable grounds with a realistic prospect of success," she told the court.
"Having had the advantage of hearing argument, I grant permission to apply for judicial review."
Judicial review is a procedure that allows anyone who has been affected by a decision or a failure to act by a public authority to apply to the courts to rule whether its actions were lawful or not.
The judge allowed the application on five grounds, including that the CPS's decision failed to "properly value human life" and that "undue and improper weight" was given to the impact of the prosecution on the teenage suspect.
The CPS had said it was not in the public interest to prosecute the boy, who was 14 at the time, and strongly denied race played any part in its decision - as claimed by Christopher's mother.
Alina Joseph says she does not want revenge, but for the facts of her son's case to be heard in court
Michael Mansfield QC, representing Christopher's family, told the court sympathy for the teenage suspect "does not come into" the decision whether to prosecute, adding: "Yes, it is a young person, but as was the person who died."
Mr Mansfield argued that there was a large enough public interest in prosecuting the boy, as well as evidence to hold a trial.
He added: "It is very rare indeed that a prosecution for homicide does not follow once the evidential threshold has been crossed.
"We say that this is a case where the prosecutor would be bound to come to the conclusion that it is in the public interest for those matters to be reviewed."
The tragedy happened in the River Cynon near Mountain Ash
The High Court heard there were 16 people at the scene of the incident near Mountain Ash on 1 July 2019, and Mr Mansfield alleged some of them had not been honest with the police.
He said: "The young people, plainly, to begin with - or some of them, we don't know how many - decided either together or apart that they were not going to reveal who did what, let alone what happened."
He later added: "What sort of message does that communicate to the community of young people if he is not prosecuted?
"That it is all right to lie? That it is all right not to disclose? A responsible citizen would find that abhorrent."
Duncan Penny QC, representing the CPS, argued the decision to bring a prosecution in any case is not automatic even if there is a high public interest, and that the family's arguments had been addressed in the original review by the body.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Christopher Kapessa "wasn't just a friend, he was more or less family"
The CPS will now have 21 days to provide evidence to prepare for the judicial review, including the evidence used to come to the decision not to prosecute.
Ms Joseph, who has pledged to launch her own legal action if the decision is not overturned, previously told BBC Wales Investigates she believed if Christopher had been white, the investigation "would have been very different".
However, on Thursday, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb rejected the claim that the CPS failed to consider the public interest in showing there is no racial bias in charging decisions.
Christopher - The Boy Who Never Came Home is on BBC iPlayer
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George Floyd death: Five key moments from the Derek Chauvin trial - BBC News
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2021-06-26
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Here are key elements of a trial that gripped the US.
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US & Canada
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The critical moments of the trial so far
The death of George Floyd, a 48-year-old black man, while he was being restrained by a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, during an arrest in Minneapolis in May 2020, shocked the world and sparked global protests about racism and police brutality.
Chauvin's three-week trial - on charges of murder and manslaughter - has now resulted in his conviction.
Here are five key moments from the trial which heard from 45 witnesses and saw hours of video footage filmed by bystanders.
Some of the most powerful testimony came in the first days of the trial when witnesses spoke of what they saw that day.
Darnella, who was 17 at the time of Mr Floyd's death, filmed the video that went viral around the world. She told the jury there were nights when she stayed up "apologising to George Floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting and not saving his life".
"When I look at George Floyd, I look at my dad. I look at my brothers, I look at my cousins, my uncles. Because they are all black," she said.
Emotional testimony also came from Charles McMillian, 61, who had been among the first on the scene and had tried to persuade Mr Floyd to get in the police car.
He broke down in tears watching graphic footage of the arrest in court, saying he had felt "helpless" as events unfolded and explained that he had confronted Chauvin after Mr Floyd was taken away in an ambulance because "what I watched was wrong".
The defence has argued that the presence of bystanders influenced Chauvin's actions that day. The court heard from one Minneapolis police officer, Peter Chang, that the crowd had been "very aggressive to the officers", while Nicole McKenzie, who trains the city's police on providing medical care, said the presence of bystanders at an arrest could make it harder for officers to see signs of distress in those they detained.
Another powerful moment came when Mr Floyd's girlfriend of three years, Courteney Ross, took the stand.
She described their first meeting, in the lobby of a Salvation Army homeless shelter, where Mr Floyd worked as a security guard, and how he had been devastated by his mother's death in 2018.
Ms Ross also told the court they both suffered from chronic pain, which led to an off-and-on struggle with opioid addiction.
"We got addicted and tried really hard to break that addiction many times," she testified.
One of the defence's arguments has been that Mr Floyd died largely because of complications from the opioids and methamphetamine he had in his system at the time of his arrest.
Another key issue at the heart of this trial has been whether Derek Chauvin violated policies on restraint when he kneeled on George Floyd's neck for nine and a half minutes.
The head of Minneapolis police, Chief Medaria Arradondo, was one of the prosecution's most high-profile witnesses and had fired Chauvin a day after the arrest.
He told the court that the police officer should have stopped applying "that level of force" the moment Mr Floyd stopped resisting. "It's not part of our training and it's certainly not part of our ethics or values" to continue with such force, he said.
Some 45 people gave evidence during the trial including (from left to right) Dr Martin Tobin, Charles McMillian and Courteney Ross
Defence witness Barry Brodd, a use-of-force expert, said Chauvin had been "justified" and acted "with objective reasonableness" because of the "imminent threat" Mr Floyd posed in resisting arrest.
However, he did concede under cross-examination that the dangers of positional asphyxia - not being able to breathe in a certain position - were well-known among law enforcers.
The cause of Mr Floyd's death was arguably central to this trial, with the prosecution maintaining he died from asphyxia while the defence pointed to Mr Floyd's drug use and general poor health.
Dr Martin Tobin, an expert in pulmonary medicine, used video footage to explain what was happening to Mr Floyd's breathing during the nine and a half minutes he lay under Chauvin's knee.
Even "a healthy person, subjected to what Mr Floyd was subjected to, would have died," he said.
A key witness for the defence, forensic pathologist David Fowler, said Mr Floyd's death should have been classified as "undetermined" rather than as a homicide, because there were "so many conflicting different potential mechanisms".
Complicating factors included Mr Floyd's drug use and possible exposure to carbon monoxide poisoning from the police car's exhaust, said Dr Fowler, who was chief medical examiner for the state of Maryland until his retirement in 2019.
However, under cross-examination he agreed that Mr Floyd should have been given immediate medical attention when he went into cardiac arrest, as there still was a chance to save his life.
Just before the defence rested its case, the man on trial - Derek Chauvin - confirmed to the judge that he would not testify.
"I will invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege today," he said, referring to the constitutional right to remain silent in fear of self-incrimination.
Asked by the judge whether this was his decision alone, and whether anyone else had unfairly influenced his decision, Chauvin responded: "No promises or threats, your honour."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The three key arguments used by Chauvin's defence
Chauvin pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree unintentional murder - for which he could be jailed for up to 40 years - third-degree murder, and manslaughter.
The jury took under a day to return a unanimous verdict convicting him of all charges.
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Covid in Wales: Vaccines for care home workers not compulsory - BBC News
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2021-06-18
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The first minister says the vaccine is voluntary, but some care homes make it a condition for a job.
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Wales
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Care workers in Wales will not be made to have the vaccine by law, but their employers might request it at interview
Vaccinations will not be made compulsory for care workers in Wales, the first minister has said.
Mark Drakeford said he preferred an approach of convincing care home workers by "argument and persuasion".
But a care home manager in Llandrindod Wells, Powys, told BBC Radio Wales "it's a condition of their employment".
In England, care workers will face being redeployed away from front-line care or potentially losing their job if they refuse to have the jab.
More than 90% of care home workers in Wales are already vaccinated, said Mr Drakeford.
"I think we have succeeded by voluntary measures, people doing the right thing," he added.
"If you move to compulsion, you may lose something that's been a strength of our approach."
Care home manager Lowrie Owen says all new employees will need to have the vaccine
Lowrie Owen, manager of Wylesfield Residential Care Home in Llandrindod Wells, said most of her staff "jumped at the chance" to have the vaccine.
"They realised how important it was to keep our residents safe," she told Radio Wales.
"There was the odd one or two who were a bit hesitant but obviously we make sure they've got the right information and give them the right support in making the right decision."
She added that candidates' willingness to have the vaccine was a priority when interviewing new staff.
"We as a company, we interview new staff now and that's a question in the interview - 'are you willing to take the vaccine?' - and it's a condition of their employment," she said.
"We need to do everything we can to make sure we're maintaining the safety of our residents and that has to be a priority."
Those who prove they cannot have the vaccine on medical grounds would have "some sort of exemption," she said.
"But if it's through a lack of information and correct understanding of what's going on, we've got a duty there to signpost them in the right direction and give them the accurate information."
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DUP Stormont team: Little sign of healing, say outgoing ministers - BBC News
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2021-06-08
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Peter Weir and Diane Dodds criticise leader's ministerial choices for not "bringing party together".
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Northern Ireland
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Outgoing ministers Peter Weir and Diane Dodds have criticised the lack of "healing" displayed in the new ministerial appointments
Two outgoing DUP ministers have criticised Edwin Poots' choice of Stormont appointments as showing a lack of "healing" within the party.
The successors to Economy Minister Diane Dodds and Education Minister Peter Weir were announced on Tuesday.
Mrs Dodds said it was "regrettable" the new team did "not match the rhetoric about healing and bringing the party together".
Her post on Twitter was retweeted by former leader Arlene Foster.
MPs Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, who was defeated in a leadership contest by Mr Poots last month, and Gavin Robinson also retweeted the post.
A number of DUP members have quit over concerns about the party's direction since Mr Poots' election.
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In a second tweet, Mrs Dodds said unionism could only grow "if it is generous, inclusive and encourages as many pro-Union voters to the cause as possible".
"I will continue in my efforts to safeguard the Union and make Northern Ireland the best place to live, work and invest," she added.
Mr Weir said there had been "some great appointments" but that he was "disappointed to leave education".
He added: "In the balance of appointments it is sad there is little sign of healing or reaching out."
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Responding to Mrs Dodds' comments, Mr Poots said he accepted that she "probably isn't in the best place today".
"I have been in that circumstance twice before where I've been a minister and I've been asked to step aside for others. And therefore that is a natural reaction," he said.
However, he added that it was "inaccurate" to say his team was only made up of his supporters.
"This team includes people who didn't vote for me, who did vote for me and who didn't declare their intentions," he said.
Mr Poots also rejected allegations made by some resigning DUP members that there had been bullying and intimidation from members of his camp during the leadership contest.
He said the DUP was "a party that will reach out to people and I, as a leader, am not someone who is either scary or bullying - I want to nail that absolutely and factually".
"If anybody wants to bring forward facts, they will be investigated, and they will be investigated fairly," he said.
On Tuesday, Mr Poots announced his new ministerial team would be:
The appointments will come into effect on Monday, allowing Mrs Foster to host the British-Irish Council meeting in County Fermanagh on Friday.
It comes after Mr Poots admitted party members "have been bruised" over its leadership election.
Speaking to BBC NI's Spotlight, which is to be broadcast on Tuesday night, he described the resignations of a number of party members as "peripheral, but nonetheless I don't want to lose anybody from the party".
He also said the party could take "a little time to heal" and that he did not believe there had been attempts to sabotage his leadership.
His comments came after the resignation of DUP councillors Glyn Hanna and Kathryn Owen, along with others in the party's South Down association.
Mr Hanna said there was a "culture of fear" in the party and claimed he witnessed "bullying" at last month's meeting of the DUP executive, during which Mr Poots' election as DUP leader was ratified by party members.
He alleged that people who had put their hands up at the meeting in support of a secret ballot on the leadership were told to put them down.
That claim was backed up by party member Roberta McNally, who was also at the DUP executive meeting and has also resigned.
The vote to hold a secret ballot was defeated, but DUP deputy leader Paula Bradley, who was ratified that night along with Mr Poots, has said a secret ballot should have been held to affirm Mr Poots' leadership.
All key positions on the front bench and back bench in terms of ministers and assembly committees have been filled.
The Poots team has indicated today that these changes will not take effect until next week at the earliest. That is to allow Arlene Foster to remain as first minister until she attends the British-Irish Council meeting on Friday.
Adopting this tactic of announcing his new team, but saying they won't take up their positions immediately, allows a period of time to allow Mrs Foster to see out her days as first minister.
We may well see Mrs Foster tendering her resignation on Monday, which then would allow Team Poots to move in and put his people on the benches on Monday evening, or perhaps Tuesday.
But who knows? Predicting the DUP over the course of the past five weeks has been a bit of a lottery.
Mr Poots said he did not accept that there is a problem of misogyny in the party.
"I have personally only ever been respectful to all of the women in our party, and encouraged them. Politics is a very hostile place, and a lot of women don't like that level of hostility," Mr Poots said.
"It is for us to ensure that we can make our arguments strongly, but also respectfully."
Mr Poots said the personal abuse he receives - and Arlene Foster has received - as a politician is "massive".
The vote to make Mr Poots leader and Ms Bradley deputy leader came amid anger from within the party about how Arlene Foster was ousted.
But Ms Bradley said there was no "purge" taking place in the party.
Spotlight is on BBC One NI at 22:45 BST on Tuesday.
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G7 summit: Why does it matter? - BBC News
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2021-06-11
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The Cornish meeting will offer glimpses of our leaders and snapshots of the relationships they forge.
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UK Politics
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Do summits like this matter? "Occasionally!" comes the answer from a former government insider who worked for years at the very top.
They warn that global get-togethers - however glamorous the location, however acute any particular political emergency, however good the freebies for the thousands of attendees - can descend into 'waffelage'.
As the most powerful elected people in the world prepare to occupy a tiny Cornish bay for a few days, will this be an occasion that makes a difference to any of our lives or will it be waffle in the end?
A senior diplomat closely involved in the preparation is confident, "this will be very meaningful."
It is the first time the new American president will have met the relatively new British prime minister in person - a big moment by any measure.
And it's the first time that the leaders of the world's biggest democracies have gathered like this since their countries were hit by a genuine emergency - Covid.
This current cast of leaders, particularly with a new boss in the White House, has given the impression in the run up to this meeting that they want genuinely to work together as the pandemic, while still with us, begins to fade.
The next few days will show whether they really mean it or not.
Even in the age of video calls and instant messages pinging their way around the world, summits do matter, because leaders and their officials can talk face to face.
Real business can get done during "the hallway conversations, the drinks at the bar", the diplomat says.
Huge public attention puts the pressure on, and the moment where they all wave goodbye and climb back into their limos or helicopters provides a deadline to decide.
Without doubt, real life contact makes a difference to what is decided.
One former senior figure in Theresa May's administration recalls a moment of jeopardy at a summit with President Trump.
He was planning to leave early, without signing up to the form of words that the other nations wanted.
The former official told me he was ushered into what was described as a "secure broom cupboard" with the then Australian leader, Malcolm Turnbull and the French President, Emmanuel Macron.
It's said they remained locked in argument in the tiny room, until Mr Trump agreed.
The traditional G7 "family photo" taken in Canada, 2018
At a different G7 meeting in 2018, again the other nations were struggling to get Mr Trump and his officials to agree on the principles the others wanted to publish.
The dispute was over if and how the final document would refer to the "international rules based order" - the loose jargon for how democracies agree to behave and work with each other through shared institutions like the UN.
Without a specific definition of what the "rules based order" really meant though, the US was reluctant.
So a small group of leaders themselves and a few key officials haggled face-to-face with the president and his powerful adviser, John Bolton, outside the formal meetings to do a deal.
The compromise was that the document would refer to "a" rules based order, not "the" when referring to the "international rules based order".
At a summit, leaders of the free world, and a few of their close aides, spent precious time arguing over the use of the definite or indefinite article...
And some of the broader tensions during that meeting were captured in a classic photograph.
Summits are the product of months and months of work by the hosts, and are carefully planned to within an inch of their lives and are huge opportunities for countries to show off.
Covering the meetings over the years I've witnessed astonishing firework displays in China, the Argentine first lady hosting an elaborate tea party for leaders' spouses where even the air kissing seemed to be choreographed, parades, concerts, and plenty of the events themselves that are designed to show the leaders' interactions to the world.
Summits have their own language too - the 'family photos' - the moments where the leaders have to take pre-appointed places for official snaps to be taken.
The 'bilats' or 'trilats' - one-to-one, or one-to-two meetings where the bond, or lack of, between the politicians is so blindingly obvious.
The 'communique' - the final document that leaders sign up to that's published at the end; prepared for months in advance by the 'sherpas', senior officials for each country, but the final version agreed only by the leaders themselves at the last minute.
But when the most senior politicians in the world and their most senior staff are in essence locked down together for a few days it is those unscripted moments that stick in the mind.
Bumping into a European prime minister who was wandering around a corridor in Brussels, who seemed lost, but said yes to an interview then and there in the dingy basement, filmed on a phone - that made the news.
One very early morning in a hot, foreign clime when trying to get some sea air to wake up after only a couple of hours of sleep, I encountered a very prominent official on the beach who rather mysteriously had company at that time of day.
One of their colleagues, seconds later, came leaping out of the sea having been confronted by some jellyfish - ending the need for a longer, awkward conversation.
When a tense European summit dragged on with David Cameron, while we hacks were still hanging around inside waiting for news, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel had had enough and popped out with her team for chips.
And at the prime minister's own first summit in charge in Biarritz he went for his own swim off the French Atlantic coast.
Of course, Boris Johnson being Boris Johnson, he didn't keep it to himself, but in classic style he used his swim out to a large rock as a metaphor for supporters for his hoped for heroics on Brexit.
One diplomat expressed concern at the notion of the leaders taking a dip this time round worrying about the all important 'optics'.
The summit will be Mrs Johnson's first official public engagement since her wedding to the prime minister.
But alongside the very serious hoped for progress on vaccines, on Covid recovery, on the climate, on reaffirming the links between the most powerful democracies in the world after the Trump Presidency, the events that have not been planned might be the ones that stay in the mind.
The next few days will also see the first official public engagements of the new Mrs Carrie Johnson.
Like it or not, always nicknamed the "leaders' wives" summit, the "spousal programme" as it's officially termed is a universe all of its own.
This time, without question, this G7 should be an occasion that matters, for the serious discussions that are due to take place.
The government hopes for strong confirmation of the relationship between the UK and the US, commitments to help get vaccines to the developing world, and for progress on climate change.
They plan also for convincing conversations with the other nations that have been invited, what the prime minister is terming the "football team" - the "D 11" - the G7 plus India (attending virtually), South Korea, South Africa and Australia too, forging links ever more important among democracies in the face of growing influence from China.
But this summit will also matter for the glimpses of our leaders, and snapshots of the vital relationships they forge.
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Daniel Morgan: Last chance for family in Britain's most-investigated, unsolved murder - BBC News
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2021-06-15
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The death of Daniel Morgan is Britain's most investigated unsolved murder. His family believe police corruption, and reluctance to confront it, could explain the murder and the failed investigations
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UK
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The final report into the death of Daniel Morgan - Britain's most-investigated, unsolved murder - has been published. In 1987, the private investigator was found dead in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in south London, with an axe in his head. Despite five separate police inquiries, spanning more than two decades, no-one has been convicted of his murder.
The family believe police corruption, and reluctance to confront it, could explain the murder and the failed investigations.
Private investigator Daniel Morgan, 37, and his business partner at Southern Investigations, Jonathan Rees, meet for a drink in the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, south-east London. Both leave the pub about 21:00.
By 21:30, Rees meets another man, professional bodyguard Paul Goodridge, in the Beulah Spa pub, three miles away in Crystal Palace.
At 21:40, a BBC sound producer pulls into the car park of the Golden Lion and finds Daniel Morgan's body. He is lying face up with an axe embedded in his head.
Daniel Morgan's body was found in the Golden Lion pub car park
Daniel's brother Alastair Morgan travels from his Hampshire home to London - to offer help, and observe the investigation.
Det Sgt Sid Fillery, who knows Rees and has moonlighted in the past for Southern Investigations, is initially assigned to the murder investigation. He is taken off the case after several days.
Six people are arrested on suspicion of the murder of the private investigator from Cwmbran in south Wales - including Jonathan Rees, Sid Fillery and Rees's brothers-in-law Glenn and Garry Vian. All are later released without charge.
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Bryan Madagan, Daniel's former employer, tells police he believes Daniel was trying to sell a story about police corruption to a newspaper. Later, others tell the family similar accounts. The family begin to suspect this may have been part of the reason Daniel was killed.
Kevin Lennon, the accountant at Southern Investigations, tells the inquest that Morgan and Rees had fallen out. He believes Rees was "determined" to have Morgan killed with the help of his friends in the police.
Rees denies murder. Lennon's testimony is undermined when it emerges he has been convicted of tax fraud.
The inquest returns a verdict of unlawful killing, and the family begin raising the case with their local MPs.
Fillery leaves the Metropolitan Police and starts to work for Southern Investigations with Rees.
Hampshire Police are called in to look at the handling of the first murder inquiry, and allegations that Met Police officers could have been involved in Daniel Morgan's death.
Under the supervision of the Police Complaints Authority, Hampshire Police are appointed to investigate allegations that police were involved in Morgan's murder.
Three arrests are made, and Rees and bodyguard Goodridge are charged with murder.
Jean Wisden, Goodridge's girlfriend, is charged with perverting the course of justice.
In May, all charges are dropped.
The Police Complaints Authority reports the findings of the Hampshire inquiry into the Met Police.
"No evidence of involvement by any police officer in the murder," is the conclusion, with "no evidence to support [Kevin] Lennon's allegations," made at the 1988 inquest.
Hampshire Police also find "no evidence to suggest any member of the murder investigation team took deliberate action to prevent the murder being properly detected".
There are "no grounds for disciplinary action against any officer [found moonlighting for Southern Investigations] other than strict admonishment".
Rees and Fillery start working regularly for tabloid newspapers, including the News of the World.
In November 1997, Alastair Morgan and his local MP, the then culture secretary Chris Smith, are assured by senior Met officers, including Commissioner Sir Paul Condon, that Daniel's case will be reviewed.
What happens next will lead to convictions, but not for murder.
Met teams gather evidence - some of it covertly by bugging the south London office of Southern Investigations.
Alastair Morgan and his mother Isobel Hulsmann arriving at Scotland Yard for a meeting with Met police commissioner Sir Paul Condon
A police bug picks up a conversation between Rees and a client. The men discuss planting drugs on the client's wife so he would get custody of their son.
Nearly six months later, several people - including Rees - are charged with conspiracy to supply Class A and B drugs, and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
Four people are later convicted, including Rees, who is sentenced to seven years.
The Morgan family keep up the pressure on the Met, and a new investigation - Operation Abelard - begins in the summer of 2001.
Police buy the house next door to suspect Glenn Vian, so they can conduct surveillance.
A reward of £50,000 is offered for information leading to the killer - and a reconstruction of the murder is featured on the BBC's Crimewatch.
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Det Ch Supt David Cook fronts the appeal. He will later become the case's senior investigating officer (SIO).
He and his wife, police officer and Crimewatch presenter Jacqui Hames, are put under surveillance by the News of the World. Jacqui Hames later gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry - the public inquiry into the practices of the British press following the phone hacking scandal. She said there was "in some way some collusion between people at the News of the World, and people who are suspected of committing the murder of Daniel Morgan".
Jacqui Hames, (third from the left) presenting Crimewatch UK with Fiona Bruce, Jeremy Paine and Nick Ross
James Cook and the Vian brothers are arrested on suspicion of murder. In December, Rees is questioned in prison.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) says there is insufficient evidence for a murder prosecution.
Frustrated yet again, the Morgan family secure a meeting with the minister responsible for policing, Hazel Blears, to call for a public inquiry into Daniel's case. Their request is refused.
Daniel's murder is discussed by the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) - the body at that time responsible for scrutinising the work of the Met.
It tells the Met Commissioner Ian Blair to produce a new report on the case. He admits the first murder inquiry in 1987 was "compromised".
Assistant Commissioner John Yates writes in a report that the investigation had unearthed some new evidence and information:
"This was presented to Treasury Counsel for review. His conclusion was that he was satisfied that we now know the identity of those responsible for Daniel Morgan's murder but that the evidence available did not meet the threshold to enable a prosecution to be commenced."
Nearly 20 years after Daniel Morgan was killed, a new police investigation begins. It would nearly lead to a full criminal trial.
Police work with three supergrass witnesses - criminals who are giving information. The process is complex and requires an independent team to handle these witnesses.
Four suspects are charged with murder - Rees, Glenn and Garry Vian, and another man, James Cook.
Sid Fillery is charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Met deputy assistant commissioner John Yates tells then Mayor of London Boris Johnson that Daniel Morgan's case "is one of the most deplorable episodes in the entire history of the Metropolitan Police Service. This family has been treated disgracefully."
Legal arguments for the trial of the suspects begin at the Old Bailey.
The case collapses before the start of the trial, and all four men are acquitted.
The judge rules the three supergrasses cannot stand as witnesses.
Acting Met commissioner Timothy Godwin acknowledges "the repeated failure of the MPS [Metropolitan Police Service] over the years to confront the role played by police corruption in protecting those responsible for the murder from being brought to justice".
Jonathan Rees, Glenn Vian and Garry Vian leave the Old Bailey in 2011
The Morgan family meet Home Secretary Theresa May to ask for a public judicial inquiry.
The Daniel Morgan Independent Panel (DMIP) is formally announced - with Baroness Nuala O'Loan appointed chair the following year.
Its remit is to "shine a light on the circumstances of Daniel Morgan's murder, its background and the handling of the case over the period since 1987".
First judgment is made in a claim for malicious prosecution and misfeasance in public office - brought by Fillery, Rees and the Vian brothers against the commissioner of the Met.
Fillery wins damages. The other claims are initially dismissed.
Rees and the Vian brothers win their claim on appeal.
Rees and the Vian brothers are awarded total of £414,000 in damages. The judge awards the sum to "highlight and condemn the egregious and shameful behaviour of a senior and experienced police officer" - referring to Det Ch Supt David Cook, who oversaw the investigation.
The evidence of a man called Gary Eaton had been excluded from the potential trial because the officer was found to have compromised Eaton's interview.
Since the collapse of the case, Det Ch Supt David Cook has been repeatedly investigated over his conduct in the investigation, although the CPS has found insufficient evidence to prosecute. Because of this, he was unable to give evidence to the panel before 2020.
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The panel completed its report this spring, and was expecting to send it to the Home Office on 14 May, with its publication in Parliament the following Monday. After an initial delay, Home Secretary Priti Patel told the panel she needed more time to assess the report for national security, and to ensure it was in alignment with the Human Rights Act. On 8 June, the Home Office said the report would be published to Parliament on 15 June, and nothing would be blanked out.
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Covid vaccine to be compulsory for England care home staff - BBC News
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2021-06-15
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The health secretary says it is a "sensible and reasonable step” and could be extended to the NHS.
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UK
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Covid vaccinations are to become compulsory for staff at care homes in England, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said.
Mr Hancock said it was a "sensible and reasonable step" and he would consult on extending it to the NHS.
There are no plans to extend mandatory vaccinations beyond health and care workers, he said.
Workers will have 16 weeks to get both jabs from the time regulations are approved by Parliament.
If they do not, they face being redeployed away from front-line care or potentially losing their job.
Mr Hancock told the House of Commons that the "vast majority of staff in care homes" were vaccinated, but not all of them.
"We know that the vaccine not only protects you but protects those around you," he said, adding that compulsory vaccinations in care homes and hospitals would save lives.
Care organisations have warned that compulsory vaccinations could cause significant difficulties in a sector that already struggles to recruit enough people.
The government, however, is believed to have considerable concerns about low take-up of the vaccine in some areas, including London.
A Whitehall source told the BBC that guidance to doctors that they should take the Hepatitis B vaccine suggested there is a precedent for mandatory vaccination.
The requirement will also apply to volunteers at care homes and those visiting for other work, such as healthcare workers, tradespeople, hairdressers and beauticians.
Workers who can prove they are medically exempt from getting the vaccine will not be affected.
There will be also be exemptions for visiting family and friends, under-18s, emergency services and people undertaking urgent maintenance work.
Governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have said they have no plans to make Covid jabs mandatory for care home staff.
It comes as the UK recorded a further 9,055 confirmed Covid cases and nine more deaths within 28 days of a positive test.
Another 190,033 people received a first dose of the vaccine on Tuesday, bringing the total with at least one dose to more than 42 million - or 79.8% of adults.
More than 30 million people - 57.8% of adults - have had both doses after a further 230,666 second jabs were given out.
The move to mandatory vaccinations for care home staff in England follows a consultation by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), launched in April, two months after the government said it had met its target of offering all front-line care workers a first dose of a vaccine by mid-February.
At the time, it said 47% of English care homes for older people had more than a fifth of staff yet to take up the vaccine, despite staff at all eligible care homes having been offered vaccines, with the vast majority of homes having had repeat visits by vaccine teams.
Dr Susan Hopkins, strategic response director for Covid-19 at Public Health England, said there are "pros and cons to any debate on mandatory vaccination", with the "pro" being that those caring for the most vulnerable in care homes would be vaccinated, thus minimising the risks to residents.
She said a possible downside could be that "people may vote with their feet, and not want to have the vaccine, and therefore not work in a care home, and that could lead to staff supply issues in care homes".
Dr Hopkins said there had been "excellent uptake" of the vaccine, adding: "I think where people are hesitant, we need to work harder to make them understand why the vaccines work."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ros Atkins on: What are the Delta variant symptoms?
The British Medical Association, which represents doctors, warned compulsion was "a blunt instrument that carries its own risks".
It added: "While some healthcare workers are already required to be immunised against certain conditions to work in certain areas, any specific proposal for the compulsory requirement for all staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19 would raise new ethical and legal implications."
Mike Padgham, chairman of the Independent Care Group (ICG) which represents care homes in Yorkshire, said he was disappointed by the decision and concerned it could cause legal disputes for providers.
He told the Today programme: "People should be vaccinated, every member of staff should take up the vaccine, but I just think persuasion rather than coercion or compulsion is the way to deal with it."
Susan Lord, whose mother lives in a care home in Leeds, said whilst it was "great" staff in the home had been vaccinated, she was "concerned" by the idea of mandatory jabs targeted solely at care workers.
Susan Lord, whose mother is in a care home, said it seemed "harsh" to threaten the jobs of social care staff
Ms Lord, from High Wycombe, told BBC News: "If someone has been working in care for years and isn't able to have the vaccine or has strong objections to having it, it seems a little bit unfair that they're going to lose their job".
She said most care home staff only work in one place and are regularly tested, so it seems "a little bit harsh".
Mr Padgham said the sector already had a "recruitment crisis", saying: "We're frightened that this is going to put more people off coming into social care and that's going to be difficult."
Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK said: "Every care home resident would want to be cared for by someone who had been vaccinated, but if a compulsory approach leads to some care workers quitting it will make existing chronic staff shortages even worse."
"With or without mandatory vaccination," she said an approach of "peer-to-peer persuasion" should be taken in care homes, "because this approach has been found to work well".
Low uptake among care home staff was a big concern when the vaccine programme was launched - similar issues are seen with the annual flu jab.
Efforts have been made to convince staff of the need to get vaccinated - there have been advertising campaigns targeting them, webinars held by health leaders and repeat visits made to homes by vaccination teams.
There are plenty of places where there has been good uptake.
But there are also significant numbers of places where fewer than 80% of staff have been vaccinated - the threshold deemed essential to keep the virus out if 90% of residents are also vaccinated.
Those working in the sector say there are a variety of reasons staff have cited - cultural reasons and concerns about safety. One common issue has been (unfounded) worries about its impact on fertility as the workforce is young and predominantly female.
This move raises lots of concerns from individual rights to its potential to force staff out from a sector that is already short of workers.
But the counter argument is that the vulnerabilities of residents and the closed environments they live in require drastic action.
Kelly Andrews, national care lead of the GMB union and a former care worker told BBC News: "We should not have forced vaccinations in social care, this is pushing the workforce away from social care in an area that we're already struggling to recruit and retain".
In a survey of about 1,000 of its carers, the GMB said, more than a third indicated they would quit their jobs if vaccines were mandated.
In the care sector in England there have been more than 40,000 deaths involving Covid.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57492264
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Daniel Morgan: Last chance for family in Britain's most-investigated, unsolved murder - BBC News
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2021-06-15
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The death of Daniel Morgan is Britain's most investigated unsolved murder. His family believe police corruption, and reluctance to confront it, could explain the murder and the failed investigations
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UK
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The final report into the death of Daniel Morgan - Britain's most-investigated, unsolved murder - has been published. In 1987, the private investigator was found dead in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in south London, with an axe in his head. Despite five separate police inquiries, spanning more than two decades, no-one has been convicted of his murder.
The family believe police corruption, and reluctance to confront it, could explain the murder and the failed investigations.
Private investigator Daniel Morgan, 37, and his business partner at Southern Investigations, Jonathan Rees, meet for a drink in the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, south-east London. Both leave the pub about 21:00.
By 21:30, Rees meets another man, professional bodyguard Paul Goodridge, in the Beulah Spa pub, three miles away in Crystal Palace.
At 21:40, a BBC sound producer pulls into the car park of the Golden Lion and finds Daniel Morgan's body. He is lying face up with an axe embedded in his head.
Daniel Morgan's body was found in the Golden Lion pub car park
Daniel's brother Alastair Morgan travels from his Hampshire home to London - to offer help, and observe the investigation.
Det Sgt Sid Fillery, who knows Rees and has moonlighted in the past for Southern Investigations, is initially assigned to the murder investigation. He is taken off the case after several days.
Six people are arrested on suspicion of the murder of the private investigator from Cwmbran in south Wales - including Jonathan Rees, Sid Fillery and Rees's brothers-in-law Glenn and Garry Vian. All are later released without charge.
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Bryan Madagan, Daniel's former employer, tells police he believes Daniel was trying to sell a story about police corruption to a newspaper. Later, others tell the family similar accounts. The family begin to suspect this may have been part of the reason Daniel was killed.
Kevin Lennon, the accountant at Southern Investigations, tells the inquest that Morgan and Rees had fallen out. He believes Rees was "determined" to have Morgan killed with the help of his friends in the police.
Rees denies murder. Lennon's testimony is undermined when it emerges he has been convicted of tax fraud.
The inquest returns a verdict of unlawful killing, and the family begin raising the case with their local MPs.
Fillery leaves the Metropolitan Police and starts to work for Southern Investigations with Rees.
Hampshire Police are called in to look at the handling of the first murder inquiry, and allegations that Met Police officers could have been involved in Daniel Morgan's death.
Under the supervision of the Police Complaints Authority, Hampshire Police are appointed to investigate allegations that police were involved in Morgan's murder.
Three arrests are made, and Rees and bodyguard Goodridge are charged with murder.
Jean Wisden, Goodridge's girlfriend, is charged with perverting the course of justice.
In May, all charges are dropped.
The Police Complaints Authority reports the findings of the Hampshire inquiry into the Met Police.
"No evidence of involvement by any police officer in the murder," is the conclusion, with "no evidence to support [Kevin] Lennon's allegations," made at the 1988 inquest.
Hampshire Police also find "no evidence to suggest any member of the murder investigation team took deliberate action to prevent the murder being properly detected".
There are "no grounds for disciplinary action against any officer [found moonlighting for Southern Investigations] other than strict admonishment".
Rees and Fillery start working regularly for tabloid newspapers, including the News of the World.
In November 1997, Alastair Morgan and his local MP, the then culture secretary Chris Smith, are assured by senior Met officers, including Commissioner Sir Paul Condon, that Daniel's case will be reviewed.
What happens next will lead to convictions, but not for murder.
Met teams gather evidence - some of it covertly by bugging the south London office of Southern Investigations.
Alastair Morgan and his mother Isobel Hulsmann arriving at Scotland Yard for a meeting with Met police commissioner Sir Paul Condon
A police bug picks up a conversation between Rees and a client. The men discuss planting drugs on the client's wife so he would get custody of their son.
Nearly six months later, several people - including Rees - are charged with conspiracy to supply Class A and B drugs, and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
Four people are later convicted, including Rees, who is sentenced to seven years.
The Morgan family keep up the pressure on the Met, and a new investigation - Operation Abelard - begins in the summer of 2001.
Police buy the house next door to suspect Glenn Vian, so they can conduct surveillance.
A reward of £50,000 is offered for information leading to the killer - and a reconstruction of the murder is featured on the BBC's Crimewatch.
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Det Ch Supt David Cook fronts the appeal. He will later become the case's senior investigating officer (SIO).
He and his wife, police officer and Crimewatch presenter Jacqui Hames, are put under surveillance by the News of the World. Jacqui Hames later gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry - the public inquiry into the practices of the British press following the phone hacking scandal. She said there was "in some way some collusion between people at the News of the World, and people who are suspected of committing the murder of Daniel Morgan".
Jacqui Hames, (third from the left) presenting Crimewatch UK with Fiona Bruce, Jeremy Paine and Nick Ross
James Cook and the Vian brothers are arrested on suspicion of murder. In December, Rees is questioned in prison.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) says there is insufficient evidence for a murder prosecution.
Frustrated yet again, the Morgan family secure a meeting with the minister responsible for policing, Hazel Blears, to call for a public inquiry into Daniel's case. Their request is refused.
Daniel's murder is discussed by the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) - the body at that time responsible for scrutinising the work of the Met.
It tells the Met Commissioner Ian Blair to produce a new report on the case. He admits the first murder inquiry in 1987 was "compromised".
Assistant Commissioner John Yates writes in a report that the investigation had unearthed some new evidence and information:
"This was presented to Treasury Counsel for review. His conclusion was that he was satisfied that we now know the identity of those responsible for Daniel Morgan's murder but that the evidence available did not meet the threshold to enable a prosecution to be commenced."
Nearly 20 years after Daniel Morgan was killed, a new police investigation begins. It would nearly lead to a full criminal trial.
Police work with three supergrass witnesses - criminals who are giving information. The process is complex and requires an independent team to handle these witnesses.
Four suspects are charged with murder - Rees, Glenn and Garry Vian, and another man, James Cook.
Sid Fillery is charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Met deputy assistant commissioner John Yates tells then Mayor of London Boris Johnson that Daniel Morgan's case "is one of the most deplorable episodes in the entire history of the Metropolitan Police Service. This family has been treated disgracefully."
Legal arguments for the trial of the suspects begin at the Old Bailey.
The case collapses before the start of the trial, and all four men are acquitted.
The judge rules the three supergrasses cannot stand as witnesses.
Acting Met commissioner Timothy Godwin acknowledges "the repeated failure of the MPS [Metropolitan Police Service] over the years to confront the role played by police corruption in protecting those responsible for the murder from being brought to justice".
Jonathan Rees, Glenn Vian and Garry Vian leave the Old Bailey in 2011
The Morgan family meet Home Secretary Theresa May to ask for a public judicial inquiry.
The Daniel Morgan Independent Panel (DMIP) is formally announced - with Baroness Nuala O'Loan appointed chair the following year.
Its remit is to "shine a light on the circumstances of Daniel Morgan's murder, its background and the handling of the case over the period since 1987".
First judgment is made in a claim for malicious prosecution and misfeasance in public office - brought by Fillery, Rees and the Vian brothers against the commissioner of the Met.
Fillery wins damages. The other claims are initially dismissed.
Rees and the Vian brothers win their claim on appeal.
Rees and the Vian brothers are awarded total of £414,000 in damages. The judge awards the sum to "highlight and condemn the egregious and shameful behaviour of a senior and experienced police officer" - referring to Det Ch Supt David Cook, who oversaw the investigation.
The evidence of a man called Gary Eaton had been excluded from the potential trial because the officer was found to have compromised Eaton's interview.
Since the collapse of the case, Det Ch Supt David Cook has been repeatedly investigated over his conduct in the investigation, although the CPS has found insufficient evidence to prosecute. Because of this, he was unable to give evidence to the panel before 2020.
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The panel completed its report this spring, and was expecting to send it to the Home Office on 14 May, with its publication in Parliament the following Monday. After an initial delay, Home Secretary Priti Patel told the panel she needed more time to assess the report for national security, and to ensure it was in alignment with the Human Rights Act. On 8 June, the Home Office said the report would be published to Parliament on 15 June, and nothing would be blanked out.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57073302
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Keira Bell: Puberty blockers give children options, Trust says - BBC News
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2021-06-23
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An appeal is examining whether under-16s can consent to using puberty blockers.
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Health
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Keira Bell said the gender identity clinic should have challenged her more
The Court of Appeal is considering whether under-16s can give informed consent to medical treatment that delays the onset of puberty.
The appeal is brought by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.
It says puberty blockers give children distressed by their birth sex time to consider "options".
But a representative for Keira Bell, who brought the original case, says children cannot understand all of the treatment's implications.
Judgement is reserved for a later date.
The two-day appeal also includes submissions from LGBT and other interested groups.
In December 2020, the High Court ruled that under-16s were unlikely to be able to give informed consent to what it described as "experimental" treatment, which is sometimes used to pause puberty in children experiencing gender dysphoria.
Keira Bell, one of the claimants in the case, started taking puberty blockers at the age of 16 after being referred to the Tavistock and Portman Trust, which runs the UK's only Gender Identity Development Service (Gids).
Now in her mid-20s, says she regrets her decision to transition to a male, and says the clinic should have challenged her more.
Speaking outside the Appeal Court on Wednesday morning, she said: "I'm always hopeful, but the result could go any way."
The Tavistock has argued throughout that it provides safe treatment and puts the best interests of young people and their families first.
On Wednesday, Fenella Moss QC, representing the Trust, argued that the High Court's original judgement was wrong to find the use of puberty blockers for gender dysphoria was "experimental".
Ms Morris said that puberty blockers are deemed fully reversible in international guidelines, and that "not providing treatment means that the child remains in a position of distress and difficulties in making choices about what to do next".
She argued that it is not inevitable that a young person would continue on to taking cross-sex hormones - which the NHS advises cause some irreversible changes - after puberty blockers.
Children and young people are told about effects on their fertility that may be caused by later stages of transition, she added.
"There is no suggestion anywhere that this is one pathway... there is no shying away from explaining to children and young people what the possibilities are."
The trust that runs the gender identity clinic is appealing the decision
Jeremy Hyam QC, representing Ms Bell and Mrs A, the other claimant, argued that the appeal should fail as it did not find any "material errors" in the original ruling.
In written arguments, he said: "The need for a child to understand, retain and weigh up the salient facts is all the more important because, unlike life-saving cancer treatment, there is much uncertainty as to what the benefits of puberty blockers actually are."
In court on Wednesday, he added: "Right at the heart of what the court was concerned about was how can it be said that children of 10, 11, 12 have any proper conception of what sexual function is?"
Nine organisations or individuals - including human rights group Liberty and The Endocrine Society - have given evidence in the appeal.
In a separate case in March, the Family Division of the High Court ruled that parents could give consent for under-16s to access puberty blockers.
But it said it may be that "additional safeguards" should be put in place, such as the requirement for an independent second opinion.
Puberty blockers are drugs that suppress the release of hormones produced in much bigger quantities during puberty.
They are sometimes used to treat gender dysphoria, which the NHS describes as "a sense of unease that a person may have because of a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity".
Gids says puberty blockers allow a young person "time to consider their options and to continue to explore their developing gender identity before making decisions about irreversible forms of treatment".
It advises that while the effects are physically reversible if treatment is stopped, the full psychological effects - or whether it alters the course of adolescent brain development - aren't known.
The NHS says "little is known" about the long term side effects in young people with gender dysphoria, including whether the treatment affects the development of the teenage brain or children's bones.
Puberty blockers are also used to treat conditions which cause premature puberty in much younger children.
This is the most contentious of areas.
Partly because opinions will vary hugely on the age at which a child can understand the impact of a decision made in their early teens on the life they will lead as an adult.
And partly because at its heart lie the futures of young people struggling with their gender identity, who may already feel marginalised, misunderstood and harmed by delays in treatment.
The Court of Appeal hearing has so far revolved around two key areas.
Firstly, whether under-16's can truly consent to puberty blockers when their feelings about, for instance, their fertility may change substantially in the next decade.
Secondly, whether that treatment is experimental. The High Court concluded it was. The Tavistock disagrees, throughout it has pointed to prescription of the drugs by doctors going back more than twenty years.
It will be for the Appeal Court to settle these arguments, but the case has already underlined the importance of more research in this complex area.
In the December ruling, Dame Victoria Sharp, sitting with Lord Justice Lewis and Mrs Justice Lieven, said: "It is doubtful that a child aged 14 or 15 could understand and weigh the long-term risks and consequences of the administration of puberty blockers."
The judges added it was "highly unlikely" that children aged 13 and under would have the capacity to give consent.
Mermaids, which provides services for young people and their families who struggle with their gender identity, says that decision, "put a further strain on the already marginalised transgender and non-binary community and their families".
"We believe strongly that trans and non-binary children should have the same rights over their healthcare decisions as anyone else, in line with their evolving understanding," the charity said in a statement.
Transgender Trend, an organisation made up of parents, professionals and academics who are "concerned about the current trend to diagnose children as transgender," has submitted evidence to the hearing.
Founder Stephanie Davies-Arai said: "Children do not have the maturity or life experience to give informed consent to medical interventions with such devastating long-term consequences and we hope and expect that the Appeal Court will uphold the High Court's judgement".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57573428
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Wales' bus service closures leaving people 'isolated' - BBC News
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2021-06-23
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There's pressure on the Welsh government to speed up improvements to services across Wales.
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Wales
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People in many areas are feeling the consequences of route closures
For many people in Wales, living without a bus service means being marooned in their homes, unable to carry out even essential tasks.
Marion Hobbs, who lives in Blaencaerau near Maesteg, has to spend £8 on taxis each time she goes food shopping, sees the doctor or simply visits friends.
Her nearby bus service stopped due to the Covid pandemic and has not resumed.
Now politicians want a timescale from the Welsh government on its promise to improve services.
Members across all parties in the Senedd pressed for more detail in a debate on Wednesday afternoon.
That cannot come soon enough for those living on the Blaencaerau estate, like Marion and her friend Keith Simon, who said they have been left "stuck" in their homes and feeling isolated without a bus service.
"I was on it [the service] six days a week" said Keith. "It was always half to three-quarters full. It was like a social gathering.
"We'd see different people... you were like a family on the bus," agreed Marion.
Keith Simon and Marion Hobbs say many people are "stuck" at home without a bus service
Councillor Paul Davies said he received complaints every day over the absence of the service.
"Older residents with mobility issues have got to walk up from the square with shopping, it's impossible," he said.
"It's one of the most deprived wards in Wales and now the last bus they had - the last thing they had - has been taken away."
The operator, First Cymru, said the service had been "problematic" before the pandemic due to low passenger numbers and vehicles being damaged because of "inconsiderate parking".
However, it said it was working with the council to find a solution.
The area's Member of the Senedd (MS), Huw Irranca-Davies, said bus travel was the only public transport option for most people in Ogmore, "three-quarters" of which has no rail line.
He has triggered a Senedd debate calling on the Welsh government to "turbo boost" its proposals to change the regulation of bus services across Wales.
The Welsh government has promised legislation to unpick reforms introduced in the 1980s which privatised bus provision outside of London and removed the ability of local authorities to run their own services.
Since then, many of the less profitable routes have lost their services.
"I want to see a fast timescale to get on with this and give control back to people over their bus services," said Mr Irranca-Davies.
Opening his debate in the Senedd chamber, he said new powers the Welsh Parliament now has should be used to put a "modern Welsh form of re-regulation of buses and public transport in place".
"Buses and public transport have a fundamental social and public purpose," he said.
Huw Irranca-Davies is pressing the Welsh government to speed up its Bus Plan
Improving access to public transport is a key part of the Welsh government's plan to tackle climate change and aims to produce a plan to look at all aspects for bus service provision by the end of the year.
Conservative Senedd transport spokeswoman Natasha Asghar told the Senedd more investment in services was needed, together with "cleaner, greener buses" and a programme of bus priority measures.
These included "effective and efficient bus lanes, priority traffic lights and improved bus shelters to encourage people out of their cars and back on buses", she said.
Plaid Cymru South Wales Central MS Heledd Fychan said the message from her constituents on buses was that they felt "forgotten about and devalued, and don't feel listened to - they are anxious, and isolated".
"This governments can change this, this government should change this," she said. "We need action, not just words, and those actions are needed now."
Deputy Climate Change Minister Lee Waters warned there were "tough choices" ahead to make the bus a genuine alternative to travelling by car.
"This is a social justice argument. Eighty per cent of bus passengers don't have an alternative, but equally fifty per cent of people never travel on the bus," he told the Senedd.
"So there's a real social divide that we need to confront. Buses have to be for everyone and attractive for everybody and have to work for everybody.
"That's going to require investment, but it's also going to require tough political choices."
The Confederation of Passenger Transport Cymru, which represents bus operators, said members were ready to work with ministers to tackle the "major challenges facing Wales" in the wake of the pandemic.
"A frequent, reliable and cost-effective bus network, built in partnership, can address all of these challenges," said director Joshua Miles.
"The Welsh government needs to make bus priority measures a common sight across Wales, help kick start a transition to low emission buses and ensure transport funding helps operators deliver better services for passengers."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57572842
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G7 summit: Why does it matter? - BBC News
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2021-06-09
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The Cornish meeting will offer glimpses of our leaders and snapshots of the relationships they forge.
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UK Politics
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Do summits like this matter? "Occasionally!" comes the answer from a former government insider who worked for years at the very top.
They warn that global get-togethers - however glamorous the location, however acute any particular political emergency, however good the freebies for the thousands of attendees - can descend into 'waffelage'.
As the most powerful elected people in the world prepare to occupy a tiny Cornish bay for a few days, will this be an occasion that makes a difference to any of our lives or will it be waffle in the end?
A senior diplomat closely involved in the preparation is confident, "this will be very meaningful."
It is the first time the new American president will have met the relatively new British prime minister in person - a big moment by any measure.
And it's the first time that the leaders of the world's biggest democracies have gathered like this since their countries were hit by a genuine emergency - Covid.
This current cast of leaders, particularly with a new boss in the White House, has given the impression in the run up to this meeting that they want genuinely to work together as the pandemic, while still with us, begins to fade.
The next few days will show whether they really mean it or not.
Even in the age of video calls and instant messages pinging their way around the world, summits do matter, because leaders and their officials can talk face to face.
Real business can get done during "the hallway conversations, the drinks at the bar", the diplomat says.
Huge public attention puts the pressure on, and the moment where they all wave goodbye and climb back into their limos or helicopters provides a deadline to decide.
Without doubt, real life contact makes a difference to what is decided.
One former senior figure in Theresa May's administration recalls a moment of jeopardy at a summit with President Trump.
He was planning to leave early, without signing up to the form of words that the other nations wanted.
The former official told me he was ushered into what was described as a "secure broom cupboard" with the then Australian leader, Malcolm Turnbull and the French President, Emmanuel Macron.
It's said they remained locked in argument in the tiny room, until Mr Trump agreed.
The traditional G7 "family photo" taken in Canada, 2018
At a different G7 meeting in 2018, again the other nations were struggling to get Mr Trump and his officials to agree on the principles the others wanted to publish.
The dispute was over if and how the final document would refer to the "international rules based order" - the loose jargon for how democracies agree to behave and work with each other through shared institutions like the UN.
Without a specific definition of what the "rules based order" really meant though, the US was reluctant.
So a small group of leaders themselves and a few key officials haggled face-to-face with the president and his powerful adviser, John Bolton, outside the formal meetings to do a deal.
The compromise was that the document would refer to "a" rules based order, not "the" when referring to the "international rules based order".
At a summit, leaders of the free world, and a few of their close aides, spent precious time arguing over the use of the definite or indefinite article...
And some of the broader tensions during that meeting were captured in a classic photograph.
Summits are the product of months and months of work by the hosts, and are carefully planned to within an inch of their lives and are huge opportunities for countries to show off.
Covering the meetings over the years I've witnessed astonishing firework displays in China, the Argentine first lady hosting an elaborate tea party for leaders' spouses where even the air kissing seemed to be choreographed, parades, concerts, and plenty of the events themselves that are designed to show the leaders' interactions to the world.
Summits have their own language too - the 'family photos' - the moments where the leaders have to take pre-appointed places for official snaps to be taken.
The 'bilats' or 'trilats' - one-to-one, or one-to-two meetings where the bond, or lack of, between the politicians is so blindingly obvious.
The 'communique' - the final document that leaders sign up to that's published at the end; prepared for months in advance by the 'sherpas', senior officials for each country, but the final version agreed only by the leaders themselves at the last minute.
But when the most senior politicians in the world and their most senior staff are in essence locked down together for a few days it is those unscripted moments that stick in the mind.
Bumping into a European prime minister who was wandering around a corridor in Brussels, who seemed lost, but said yes to an interview then and there in the dingy basement, filmed on a phone - that made the news.
One very early morning in a hot, foreign clime when trying to get some sea air to wake up after only a couple of hours of sleep, I encountered a very prominent official on the beach who rather mysteriously had company at that time of day.
One of their colleagues, seconds later, came leaping out of the sea having been confronted by some jellyfish - ending the need for a longer, awkward conversation.
When a tense European summit dragged on with David Cameron, while we hacks were still hanging around inside waiting for news, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel had had enough and popped out with her team for chips.
And at the prime minister's own first summit in charge in Biarritz he went for his own swim off the French Atlantic coast.
Of course, Boris Johnson being Boris Johnson, he didn't keep it to himself, but in classic style he used his swim out to a large rock as a metaphor for supporters for his hoped for heroics on Brexit.
One diplomat expressed concern at the notion of the leaders taking a dip this time round worrying about the all important 'optics'.
The summit will be Mrs Johnson's first official public engagement since her wedding to the prime minister.
But alongside the very serious hoped for progress on vaccines, on Covid recovery, on the climate, on reaffirming the links between the most powerful democracies in the world after the Trump Presidency, the events that have not been planned might be the ones that stay in the mind.
The next few days will also see the first official public engagements of the new Mrs Carrie Johnson.
Like it or not, always nicknamed the "leaders' wives" summit, the "spousal programme" as it's officially termed is a universe all of its own.
This time, without question, this G7 should be an occasion that matters, for the serious discussions that are due to take place.
The government hopes for strong confirmation of the relationship between the UK and the US, commitments to help get vaccines to the developing world, and for progress on climate change.
They plan also for convincing conversations with the other nations that have been invited, what the prime minister is terming the "football team" - the "D 11" - the G7 plus India (attending virtually), South Korea, South Africa and Australia too, forging links ever more important among democracies in the face of growing influence from China.
But this summit will also matter for the glimpses of our leaders, and snapshots of the vital relationships they forge.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57406576
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Covid: Everyone can see hospitalisations going up, says PM - BBC News
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2021-06-09
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Boris Johnson says vaccine protection is key to unlocking, as number in hospital with Covid hits 1,000.
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Health
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Soldiers guide members of the public to a vaccination centre in Bolton
Boris Johnson says it is clear that Covid cases are rising and hospitalisations increasing, as a decision on 21 June unlocking looms.
Official figures show more than 1,000 people in the UK are currently in hospital with the disease.
The PM said he needed to assess the extent to which the vaccine rollout has built up protection in the population before progressing with the roadmap.
And he said again that the decision for England would be "driven by the data".
The number of people in hospital with the virus has risen above 1,000 for the first time since mid-May.
Scientists believe this could be the start of the third wave, caused by the Delta variant.
The size of that wave depends on how effective vaccines are at protecting people - and that is still uncertain.
The government is due to decide on 14 June whether to lift the last remaining restrictions in England.
But government sources are more downbeat about the prospect of the easing going ahead the following week.
Speaking in Cornwall ahead of the G7 summit, the prime minister said there are "arguments being made one way or another" as to whether all restrictions can be lifted as planned.
"What everybody can see very clearly is that cases are going up and, in some places, hospitalisations are going up.
"What we need to assess is the extent to which the vaccine rollout, which has been phenomenal, has built up enough protection in the population in order for us to go ahead to the next stage."
Mr Johnson said ministers would consider the data before deciding on the next stage of the unlocking
Mr Johnson added: "The reason we've been doing the steps on the roadmap with five-week intervals is to give us time to look at all the data as it comes in and access the state of the pandemic before we go forward to the next step.
"So on Monday that four-week period will be up - and we'll look at where we are."
It comes as one million under 30s booked vaccine appointments in England on Tuesday - and data showed more than half the adult population is fully vaccinated.
Prof Neil Ferguson, virus modeller from Imperial College London whose predictions were key to the first lockdown in March 2020, has said that delaying unlocking would allow more people to be vaccinated.
While a first dose gives some protection against the Delta variant, first detected in India, the second dose appears to give much more.
Another 7,540 people tested positive for the coronavirus in the UK on Wednesday - the highest daily number of cases since the end of February, the latest government figures show.
There were also a further six deaths reported within 28 days of a positive test. A week ago there were 4,330 cases and 12 deaths.
A total of 1,024 people are now being treated in hospital in the UK, up 69 on the previous figure.
To date, most of those in hospital have not been vaccinated or had only one dose, with very few fully vaccinated.
Prof Ferguson said it was still not clear how the rise in cases would translate into hospitalisations and it would take a few more weeks to find out.
It was always expected cases would rise at this stage - indoor mixing is the move that allows the virus to spread most easily.
But what's concerning government scientists is how quickly cases are going up because of the Delta variant, and how that has begun to translate into hospitalisations.
The hope was the vaccination success would lead to a slower increase in infections and hospital admissions would be flatter.
Vaccines have weakened the link between the two. The rate of admission seems to be about half of what it was in September when infection levels were last climbing like this.
But that may not be enough. One hope is the rise in infections could fizzle out given the immunity that has built up in the population.
And there are suggestions those admitted now are not as sick as those admitted last year. Patients appear to be younger and not needing as much treatment.
But the lack of certainty means government scientists are suggesting extra time may be needed before the complete unlocking of society.
This will have a double benefit - allowing more time to gather data and increasing the numbers vaccinated.
Experts say there is still much about the Delta variant and how well vaccines work against it that is unknown.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock previously said the variant was 40% more transmissible than the Alpha (or Kent) variant, but Prof Ferguson's "best estimate" is 60%.
"Almost certainly I think deaths probably will be lower [than the second wave] - the vaccines are having a highly protective effect, cases in hospital now are milder - but it still could be quite worrying," Prof Ferguson said.
The rises in hospital cases are mainly driven by increases in Scotland and the north-west of England.
This is where cases have been rising for the longest in the UK in the early stages of this third wave.
Vaccines and tests are being offered more quickly to people in Greater Manchester and Lancashire in a bid to suppress cases of the new variant, as Bolton has been able to do.
The town saw a recent drop in infection rates and the government is now planning the same approach in other parts of the region.
Meanwhile, a record million jabs were booked on Tuesday when those aged 25 to 29 became eligible for the vaccine in England, according to new figures.
The NHS in England said 100,000 appointments were being booked every hour at the height of the surge.
Sir Simon Stevens, its chief executive, said bookings reaching an all-time high showed enthusiasm for the vaccination programme "remains strong".
He added: "The obvious enthusiasm of younger adults to get their jab has blown out of the water the suggestion that people in their 20s might not come forward to protect themselves and their loved ones."
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Covid: Euros fans' celebrations 'upsetting' for rule-abiding pubs - BBC News
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2021-06-24
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Fans have been photographed hugging and shouting at some venues.
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Wales
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Wales fans react as they watch the Euro 2020 match between Italy and Wales in Cardiff
A pub landlord says pictures of football fans hugging and shouting while watching Wales' Euros games are upsetting.
Newport pub manager Enzo Nigro said his pub is having weekly council spot-checks but "there's nobody spot checking all these other places".
Cardiff and Vale health board said there had been no spike in cases as a result of the fan zone event.
The Welsh government had urged people not to sing or shout.
It said: "We all have a responsibility to follow the rules."
Wales' Covid rules mean hugs are restricted to extended households only and you should not hug anyone who is not a part of yours, unlike in England and Scotland.
Although you can now visit a pub or restaurant in a group of six from six different households, you are not allowed to hug anyone who is not in your extended household and should maintain social distancing.
Mr Nigro, senior manager of The Potters Pub, told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast with Claire Summers: "It's upsetting because obviously we're doing what we're supposed to be doing and you see that and it's frustrating that not everybody is abiding by the rules.
"It's hard work, especially when Wales score.
"You've got to give them 30 seconds of excitement because you're never going to stop it and then you've got to tell everybody to calm down and sit down.
"You're like a school teacher telling children how to behave.
"It is very stressful and then people are looking at you with disgust - it's hard work monitoring every table in the pub."
He added: "They're spot checking us often - I've seen them once a week so far since we've opened but there's nobody spot checking all these other places."
On Wednesday, chairman of the Brewers of Wales Simon Buckley wrote an open letter to First Minister Mark Drakeford asking for clarity on the rules for hospitality.
He wrote: "How can pubs have fan zones where there is no social distancing, and the licensing departments and police fail to enforce current restrictions, whilst pubs still have to enforce distancing?"
He said publicans who had "done everything we can to protect our customers" were "facing the backlash of consumers who are horrified at what was allowed to happen" who were "staying away from pubs".
He added: "If you are content to allow the behaviour of last weekend to be the norm, then there can be no further argument that restrictions should be lifted, and social distancing should be scrapped.
"However, I believe the consumer needs confidence that the hospitality sector is safe, and the only way to do that is to have rules that do not defy logic and are enforced."
Mr Nigro said: "Well I think the letter says it all - Mr Drakeford has got to step up and relax the rules or let people come to the bar and walk around."
Despite Health Minister Eluned Morgan saying the Welsh government would consider allowing fan zones if a council came forward with a proposal, so far none have.
Of the 14 councils who have replied to a BBC question on the subject - Anglesey, Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend, Cardiff, Ceredigion, Conwy, Denbighshire, Gwynedd, Merthyr, Monmouthshire, Newport Rhondda Cynon Taf, Powys and Wrexham - not one is planning anything.
A Welsh government spokesman said: "We fully appreciate the hospitality industry has faced extremely difficult challenges during the Covid pandemic, which is why we've pulled every lever possible to provide support...
"The Covid regulations are there to prevent the spread of the virus and keep us safe. We all have a responsibility to follow the rules."
He said they would respond to Mr Buckley's letter "in due course".
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Rudy Giuliani has New York law licence suspended - BBC News
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2021-06-24
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The former New York mayor and lawyer to Donald Trump is reprimanded over US election allegations.
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US & Canada
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Rudy Giuliani was admitted to the New York state bar more than 50 years ago
Rudy Giuliani has had his law licence suspended in New York for making "demonstrably false and misleading" claims around the 2020 US election.
Mr Giuliani, 77, has been a mayor of New York City and a personal lawyer to former US President Donald Trump.
Mr Trump refused to admit losing the November election to Joe Biden and Mr Giuliani went to court to overturn the result, claiming it had been fixed.
On Thursday, the ex-president defended him as "a great American patriot".
Hours after a New York appeals court ruled Mr Giuliani had lied about electoral fraud to the public and in legal statements, Mr Trump repeated the claims again without providing new evidence.
The decision, made by a five-judge panel, is temporary - pending the outcome of a full disciplinary hearing.
Since the election Mr Trump and his allies have filed dozens of lawsuits alleging voter fraud in last year's elections. All but one have been dismissed by US courts, or withdrawn by prosecutors.
Lawyers for Mr Giuliani said they were disappointed with the New York ruling.
"Our client does not pose a present danger to the public interest," they said in a joint statement. "We believe that once the issues are fully explored at a hearing Mr Giuliani will be reinstated as a valued member of the legal profession that he has served so well in his many capacities for so many years."
In their decision, the judges said Mr Giuliani had made several false statements about voting in the states of Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania - including claims that hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots and other votes had been improperly counted.
The court rejected Mr Giuliani's argument that investigations into his conduct violated his right to free speech. It also suggested the suspension may eventually be permanent.
The suspension itself marks a big change in fortunes for Mr Giuliani, who once had a prominent legal and political career in New York.
He was admitted to the state bar in 1969 and eventually served as US Attorney for the Southern District of New York under the Ronald Reagan administration.
He became the city's mayor in 1994 and later earned widespread national praise for his response to the 11 September 2001 attacks.
Thursday's development comes only months after Mr Giuliani's home and office were raided by the FBI as part of an unrelated investigation into his alleged dealings with Ukraine.
• None Hang on, why was Trump impeached again?
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Covid vaccine to be compulsory for England care home staff - BBC News
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2021-06-16
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The health secretary says it is a "sensible and reasonable step” and could be extended to the NHS.
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UK
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Covid vaccinations are to become compulsory for staff at care homes in England, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said.
Mr Hancock said it was a "sensible and reasonable step" and he would consult on extending it to the NHS.
There are no plans to extend mandatory vaccinations beyond health and care workers, he said.
Workers will have 16 weeks to get both jabs from the time regulations are approved by Parliament.
If they do not, they face being redeployed away from front-line care or potentially losing their job.
Mr Hancock told the House of Commons that the "vast majority of staff in care homes" were vaccinated, but not all of them.
"We know that the vaccine not only protects you but protects those around you," he said, adding that compulsory vaccinations in care homes and hospitals would save lives.
Care organisations have warned that compulsory vaccinations could cause significant difficulties in a sector that already struggles to recruit enough people.
The government, however, is believed to have considerable concerns about low take-up of the vaccine in some areas, including London.
A Whitehall source told the BBC that guidance to doctors that they should take the Hepatitis B vaccine suggested there is a precedent for mandatory vaccination.
The requirement will also apply to volunteers at care homes and those visiting for other work, such as healthcare workers, tradespeople, hairdressers and beauticians.
Workers who can prove they are medically exempt from getting the vaccine will not be affected.
There will be also be exemptions for visiting family and friends, under-18s, emergency services and people undertaking urgent maintenance work.
Governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have said they have no plans to make Covid jabs mandatory for care home staff.
It comes as the UK recorded a further 9,055 confirmed Covid cases and nine more deaths within 28 days of a positive test.
Another 190,033 people received a first dose of the vaccine on Tuesday, bringing the total with at least one dose to more than 42 million - or 79.8% of adults.
More than 30 million people - 57.8% of adults - have had both doses after a further 230,666 second jabs were given out.
The move to mandatory vaccinations for care home staff in England follows a consultation by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), launched in April, two months after the government said it had met its target of offering all front-line care workers a first dose of a vaccine by mid-February.
At the time, it said 47% of English care homes for older people had more than a fifth of staff yet to take up the vaccine, despite staff at all eligible care homes having been offered vaccines, with the vast majority of homes having had repeat visits by vaccine teams.
Dr Susan Hopkins, strategic response director for Covid-19 at Public Health England, said there are "pros and cons to any debate on mandatory vaccination", with the "pro" being that those caring for the most vulnerable in care homes would be vaccinated, thus minimising the risks to residents.
She said a possible downside could be that "people may vote with their feet, and not want to have the vaccine, and therefore not work in a care home, and that could lead to staff supply issues in care homes".
Dr Hopkins said there had been "excellent uptake" of the vaccine, adding: "I think where people are hesitant, we need to work harder to make them understand why the vaccines work."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ros Atkins on: What are the Delta variant symptoms?
The British Medical Association, which represents doctors, warned compulsion was "a blunt instrument that carries its own risks".
It added: "While some healthcare workers are already required to be immunised against certain conditions to work in certain areas, any specific proposal for the compulsory requirement for all staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19 would raise new ethical and legal implications."
Mike Padgham, chairman of the Independent Care Group (ICG) which represents care homes in Yorkshire, said he was disappointed by the decision and concerned it could cause legal disputes for providers.
He told the Today programme: "People should be vaccinated, every member of staff should take up the vaccine, but I just think persuasion rather than coercion or compulsion is the way to deal with it."
Susan Lord, whose mother lives in a care home in Leeds, said whilst it was "great" staff in the home had been vaccinated, she was "concerned" by the idea of mandatory jabs targeted solely at care workers.
Susan Lord, whose mother is in a care home, said it seemed "harsh" to threaten the jobs of social care staff
Ms Lord, from High Wycombe, told BBC News: "If someone has been working in care for years and isn't able to have the vaccine or has strong objections to having it, it seems a little bit unfair that they're going to lose their job".
She said most care home staff only work in one place and are regularly tested, so it seems "a little bit harsh".
Mr Padgham said the sector already had a "recruitment crisis", saying: "We're frightened that this is going to put more people off coming into social care and that's going to be difficult."
Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK said: "Every care home resident would want to be cared for by someone who had been vaccinated, but if a compulsory approach leads to some care workers quitting it will make existing chronic staff shortages even worse."
"With or without mandatory vaccination," she said an approach of "peer-to-peer persuasion" should be taken in care homes, "because this approach has been found to work well".
Low uptake among care home staff was a big concern when the vaccine programme was launched - similar issues are seen with the annual flu jab.
Efforts have been made to convince staff of the need to get vaccinated - there have been advertising campaigns targeting them, webinars held by health leaders and repeat visits made to homes by vaccination teams.
There are plenty of places where there has been good uptake.
But there are also significant numbers of places where fewer than 80% of staff have been vaccinated - the threshold deemed essential to keep the virus out if 90% of residents are also vaccinated.
Those working in the sector say there are a variety of reasons staff have cited - cultural reasons and concerns about safety. One common issue has been (unfounded) worries about its impact on fertility as the workforce is young and predominantly female.
This move raises lots of concerns from individual rights to its potential to force staff out from a sector that is already short of workers.
But the counter argument is that the vulnerabilities of residents and the closed environments they live in require drastic action.
Kelly Andrews, national care lead of the GMB union and a former care worker told BBC News: "We should not have forced vaccinations in social care, this is pushing the workforce away from social care in an area that we're already struggling to recruit and retain".
In a survey of about 1,000 of its carers, the GMB said, more than a third indicated they would quit their jobs if vaccines were mandated.
In the care sector in England there have been more than 40,000 deaths involving Covid.
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M&S to cut Christmas products in Northern Ireland - BBC News
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2021-07-21
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Chairman Archie Norman says customs checks will mean higher prices and less choice for customers.
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Business
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Marks & Spencer has warned it is already cutting Christmas products in Northern Ireland due to concerns over forthcoming post-Brexit customs checks.
Chairman Archie Norman told Radio Four's Today Programme the changes could mean higher prices and less choice for Northern Ireland customers.
Mr Norman said current "pointless" checks with the Republic of Ireland were "threatening" to its business.
He called for a "common sense approach to enforcement."
The UK is expected later to warn the EU it is prepared to unilaterally override the Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland if a simplified agreement cannot be reached.
Right now, supermarkets who send products there from Great Britain face only light-touch checks, under a so-called "grace period" which delayed some of the new processes. That runs out at the end of September.
The Northern Ireland Protocol helps prevent the need for checks on the island of Ireland's internal border.
But in the first warning from a major retailer on the scale of the potential problems, former Conservative party MP Mr Norman said once light-touch export checks end, there will be "gaps on the shelves".
"This Christmas, I can tell you already, we're having to make decisions to delist product for Northern Ireland because it's simply not worth the risk of trying to get it through," he said.
"We've already made that decision. We're waiting to see how serious it's going to be but if it's anything like southern Ireland (the Republic of Ireland), and at the moment it's set to be, then it's going to be very, very serious for customers."
Marks and Spencer is a major employer in Ireland, with more than 4,000 staff.
In a letter to Brexit minister Lord Frost, Mr Norman said the current EU customs arrangements were "totally unsuited and were never designed for a modern fresh food supply chain between closely intertwined trading partners".
"There is no other outcome for consumers in Northern Ireland in the end other than higher prices, given the inflationary pressures being put on to retailers by the regulatory regime," Mr Norman wrote.
"Being able to keep the show on the road, let alone growing, is going to be very challenging," he added.
Mr Norman told the BBC that "pettifogging enforcement" of the rules required M&S to employ 14 full-time vets, "simply ticking boxes and filling out forms", in order to certify its products.
"Sandwiches typically require three veterinary certificates to get through," he said.
Because of the way the system worked, M&S had had to give up exporting half its sandwich range to Ireland, he said.
If forms were filled in incorrectly, that meant delays, with everything on paper and nothing digital, Mr Norman said.
"If one page is blue instead of black typeface, the entire wagon is turned away," he added.
Mr Norman said that if the same regime was replicated in Northern Ireland at the end of September, it would be "incendiary" for the public there.
Mr Norman said M&S was one of the largest UK-based retailers operating in Ireland as a whole and played "a disproportionate role" in Northern Ireland.
"Our market share in Northern Ireland is almost double our share on the UK mainland. In part, this reflects our history as the only major UK retailer that committed to trade and invest continuously through the Troubles," he said.
"Our commitment and involvement with the people and communities of Northern Ireland remains strong. We are also a major employer and investor with over 4,000 people employed directly by M&S and many more in our supply chain."
He added that last year, M&S invested more than £10m in the business in Northern Ireland.
However, the issues raised by the current customs arrangements, in which Northern Ireland remains part of the EU Single Market while the rest of the UK has left, were "very threatening to our business", he said.
Ireland's European affairs minister Thomas Byrne said it was willing to discuss "any creative solutions".
"But we have to recognise as well that Britain decided itself to leave the single market of the European Union, to apply trade rules, to apply red tape to its goods that are leaving Britain, to goods that are coming into Britain," he added.
The EU has said a temporary Swiss-style veterinary agreement for Northern Ireland, in which the UK continues to follow EU agri-food rules, could be a solution, but it has been rejected by the UK.
In his letter, Mr Norman said he understood why the UK government was "not favourably disposed" to this solution, although he added that it was "by far the best way of delivering a smooth trade flow".
Regardless of this, he added, many problems could be solved by a willingness to overlook "trivial" errors in paperwork and efforts to set up a "trusted trader" scheme.
"Any scheme should start on the basis that we are prepared to follow EU standards for products going to Northern Ireland," he said.
"The debate is not about meeting standards, this is about what we are required to do to show we are compliant."
Number 10 said Mr Norman's letter was a "stark warning" of "the fundamental problems with the Protocol".
"That is why we need to urgently tackle these issues, to ensure there is minimal disruption to people's lives in Northern Ireland, as the Protocol itself intended," it added.
It plans to set out details later on its approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol.
The sort of products M&S is considering taking off the list for Northern Ireland this Christmas are ones containing a lot of different ingredients. For example, special occasion food like pies or pates, which people might order for a celebration.
Today, the company's chairman wants to send a message that the way post-Brexit rules on trade with EU countries have been implemented is making it extremely difficult to get products over to the Republic of Ireland, forcing the retailer to cut back the range it sells there.
And he fears Northern Ireland is heading the same way.
It won't be a co-incidence that Archie Norman's intervention comes just before we expect to hear more on the government's proposals. He presents an argument for introducing less disruptive trade processes after the grace periods expire.
Whether the EU will accept that is a whole other question.
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Liverpool stripped of Unesco World Heritage status - BBC News
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2021-07-21
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The city is deleted from the much-coveted Unesco list because of developments on the waterfront.
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Liverpool
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Liverpool's World Heritage status recognised the architectural landmarks on the waterfront
Liverpool has been stripped of its World Heritage status after a UN committee found developments threatened the value of the city's waterfront.
The decision was made following a secret ballot by the Unesco committee at a meeting in China.
Unesco had said that the developments, including the planned new Everton FC stadium, had resulted in a "serious deterioration" of the historic site.
The decision was described as "incomprehensible" by the city's mayor.
"Our World Heritage site has never been in better condition having benefitted from hundreds of millions of pounds of investment across dozens of listed buildings and the public realm," Joanne Anderson said.
She said she would work with the government to examine whether the city could appeal against the decision, which comes "a decade after Unesco last visited the city to see it with their own eyes".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The decision was made at a UN meeting in China
Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram said the decision was "a retrograde step that does not reflect the reality of what is happening on the ground".
"Places like Liverpool should not be faced with the binary choice between maintaining heritage status or regenerating left-behind communities and the wealth of jobs and opportunities that come with it," he said.
Labour's Kim Johnson, MP for Liverpool Riverside, said she remained "proud of my city and what we've done".
"People come here because it's amazing city and, while I'm disappointed, as a city we are resilient and we will always fight back."
An artist's impression of Everton's new stadium, which is being built at Bramley Moore Dock
The government said it was "extremely disappointed" and believes Liverpool still deserves its heritage status "given the significant role the historic docks and the wider city have played throughout history".
Liverpool becomes only the third site to lose its World Heritage status since the list began in 1978, the other two being Oman's Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in 2007 and the Dresden Elbe Valley in Germany in 2009.
Announcing the decision, the committee chairman said 20 votes had been cast - with 13 in favour of deleting the city, five against the proposal and two ballot papers being invalid.
Liverpool's Liberal Democrat leader Richard Kemp said it was a "day of shame" for the city, adding that it would "without a doubt, affect our tourism and inward investment".
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The city was awarded the much-coveted title in 2004 in recognition of its historical and architectural impact, joining places including the Taj Mahal, Egypt's Pyramids and Canterbury Cathedral.
It recognised its history as a major trading centre during the British Empire and its architectural landmarks.
However, a report in June by the World Heritage Committee said developments on the city's waterfront had resulted in "irreversible loss of attributes".
It cited the Liverpool Waters project and Everton's new stadium, which is being built at Bramley Moore Dock.
Chris Capes, director of development for Peel L&P's Liverpool Waters, said he was disappointed "particularly given the considerable investment that the city has put into protecting and improving its heritage sites".
Everton have agreed to invest up to £55m to "preserve, restore and celebrate the heritage assets" of the area as part of its stadium plan.
They project was approved following two public consultations, with the second survey attracting more than 40,000 people.
The club found 98% of people supported the proposed design of the stadium, while 96% backed the club's plans for historic features on the site.
Liverpool has seen more peaks and troughs than most, and it's a city which has changed immeasurably since 2004 when the World Heritage Status was conferred.
Back then, there was no Liverpool One shopping centre, no hint that Everton would consider building a multi-million pound waterfront stadium and its year as European Capital of Culture hadn't happened. The city has changed.
Today, there's a sense of defiance in some quarters about Unesco's decision that the city doesn't need the title, especially if sits in the way of progress for an area which has lain neglected and semi derelict for decades.
Critics argue the benefits of being a World Heritage status were never properly spelled out and there wasn't the political will in the city to address Unesco's concerns until recently, when it was too late.
Many people argue that tourists visiting the Pier Head, St George's Plateau or Penny Lane are not coming because Liverpool is a designated World Heritage site - they probably don't even realise it is.
They're coming for the Beatles, the football, food and the history but that history will remain.
Yet today's announcement worries those who fear that the ability to protect heritage, architecture and history is now diminished, that there will be a free-for-all of unsuitable, careless development.
The argument for the last decade has been presented as a binary choice: heritage or progress? The feeling in Liverpool is, couldn't we have had both?
Dr David Jeffery hopes the decision will act as a warning to the council
Dr David Jeffery, who is a lecturer of British politics at the University of Liverpool, said he believed the decision would not have a "serious impact" on the city's tourism industry.
"I do hope this serves as a warning to the council to stop approving ugly buildings though," he said.
Wayne Colquhoun, who has campaigned for 15 years to keep Liverpool's heritage status, said he was "devastated" by the news.
"It's the status symbol that has put us up there with the Great Wall of China and the pyramids and now it has gone," he said.
"You've got to be clever being a World Heritage city and be able to take traditional materials and build them in a modern manner."
Wayne Colquhoun said the decision would "stop people thinking that we are up there with the greatest cities on Earth"
Richie Wright, 40, who has lived in Liverpool all his life, said the status had "on many occasions, hampered and restricted development in a city that is ripe for development".
"I hope that Liverpool and its wider city region now seizes this opportunity to make common sense decisions that make our city and the world proud," he said.
World War One soldiers paraded outside St George's Hall in 1915
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Dominic Cummings: I discussed ousting PM after 2019 election landslide - BBC News
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2021-07-21
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Boris Johnson's former aide says Downing Street rifts developed within days of a landslide victory.
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UK Politics
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Dominic Cummings has revealed he discussed ousting Boris Johnson within days of the Conservatives winning the December 2019 election by a landslide.
The PM's former chief adviser told the BBC it seemed that, by mid-January 2020, Mr Johnson did not "have a plan".
Mr Cummings also alleged the PM's wife Carrie Johnson had tried to influence government appointments.
But, despite quitting Downing Street last autumn following a power struggle, he denied being motivated by revenge.
Asked about Mr Cummings's comments, a government spokesperson said ministers were fully focused on recovery from the pandemic and restoring the economy.
In his first major TV interview, Mr Cummings - who ran the Vote Leave campaign in the 2016 EU referendum campaign before working as the prime minister's adviser - told BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg that:
The Conservatives won the 2019 general election with a far better than expected 80-seat Commons majority, after a campaign involving Mr Cummings and other former Vote Leave staff in which they promised to "get Brexit done".
Mr Cummings claimed that Carrie Johnson - then Carrie Symonds - had been pleased to have Vote Leave veterans working in Downing Street until then.
But he added: "As soon as the election was won, her view was 'Why should it be Dominic and the Vote Leave team? Why shouldn't it be me that's pulling the strings?'"
Dominic Cummings: The Interview will be broadcast in the UK on BBC Two at 19:00 BST on Tuesday, and it will be available on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds
Mr Cummings said he and his allies began to fear for their positions by January 2020 and started discussing Mr Johnson's future.
"[People] were already saying, 'By the summer, either we'll all have gone from here or we'll be in the process of trying to get rid of [Mr Johnson] and get someone else in as prime minister'," he said.
Defending the discussions about removing the democratically elected Mr Johnson, Mr Cummings said: "He [the prime minister] doesn't have a plan, he doesn't know how to be prime minister and we only got him in there because we had to solve a certain problem not because he was the right person to be running the country."
Boris Johnson married Carrie Symonds, with whom he has one child, in May
He also said: "The situation we found ourselves in is that, within days... the prime minister's girlfriend is trying to get rid of us and appoint complete clowns to certain key jobs."
Bad feelings remained within Downing Street, Mr Cummings said, with his relationship with the prime minister effectively broken by July last year.
Four months later, on 14 November, he quit his government job.
His departure also came at a point when the prime minister was "fed up with the media portrayal of him being a kind of puppet for the Vote Leave team - it was driving him round the bend", Mr Cummings said.
A Downing Street spokesperson declined to comment in detail on Mr Cummings's allegations against Mrs Johnson, but said: "Political appointments are entirely made by the prime minister."
Despite running the successful Vote Leave campaign in the referendum, Mr Cummings said that "no-one on Earth" could be certain it had been the right decision to quit the EU.
"I think anyone who says they're sure about questions like that has a screw loose, whether you're on the Remain side or on our side," he said.
"One of the reasons why we won is... we didn't think we were all right and all Remainers were idiots or traitors or anything else."
The claim that the UK was giving the EU £350m a week caused huge controversy during the referendum campaign
But the Leave campaign has come in for criticism over its use during the campaign of a controversial claim that the UK was giving £350m a week to the EU.
Questioned over this, Mr Cummings said it had been a trap "to try and drive the Remain campaign and the people running it crazy, so they would start arguing about it".
UK voters decided by 51.9% to 48.1% to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum.
Asked whether the UK had become more divided and politics more brutal in the years since, and whether he had damaged to the country through his campaigning style, Mr Cummings replied: "Obviously I think Brexit was a good thing… I think that the way in which the world has worked out since 2016 vindicates the arguments that Vote Leave made in all sorts of ways.
"I think it's good that Brexit happened."
In recent months, Mr Cummings has written several blogs highly critical of Mr Johnson and attacked his competence and handling of the the pandemic when appearing before a parliamentary select committee.
But he denied that doing all this, and agreeing to be interviewed by the BBC, was part of a quest for revenge.
Mr Cummings admitted that people thought of him "generally as a nightmare", but said it "doesn't matter if people are upset" by attempts to reform government.
"A lot of people have a pop at me, but you don't see me crying about it," he said.
He also revealed that he had not spoken to the prime minister since quitting, having not answered a call from Mr Johnson shortly after he left Downing Street.
It did not "bother me one way or the other" whether they would speak again, he added.
Mr Cummings was repeatedly challenged throughout his BBC interview to back up his version of events.
He said many of his claims about the workings of government would be corroborated if there was a public inquiry into its handling of the Covid pandemic.
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Covid: Call to let Novavax volunteers have second vaccine - BBC News
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2021-07-03
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Volunteers "frustrated and angry" at now not being able to travel abroad after vaccine trial.
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Wales
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Patricia and Brian Antlett signed up for the Novavax trial as they wanted to play their part in the fight against coronavirus
Calls have been made for "in limbo" Novavax trial volunteers to be allowed an approved vaccine.
Patricia and Brian Antlett, from Wrexham, are desperate to visit family in Spain while Mr Antlett needs to go to Italy for work as an engineer.
However, they took part in trials of the unapproved Novavax - which foreign countries do not accept for travel.
The Welsh government urged trial volunteers to talk to their doctor or trial team about any issues.
The UK government's Department of Health said it would ensure thousands of Novavax trial volunteers across the UK were not disadvantaged.
However, Mrs Antlett does not believe that has been the case and they have been left "frustrated and angry".
The couple said they have been told by health officials in Wales they are not able to have a second type of vaccine - such as Pfizer or Oxford AstraZeneca - because there is no data on mixing jabs.
However, they do claim some vaccine centres in England have allowed Novavax volunteers to choose to have a second type of the vaccine.
Novavax was shown to be 89.3% effective at preventing Covid in its Phase 3 UK trial
"Advice does not mean something is mandatory," said Mrs Antlett.
"In fact, if you turn the argument around, the government is strongly advising everyone to have a vaccine, but is not denying freedom of choice not to have one."
The latest advice they have received is that a Novavax vaccine is recognised for UK events but not by other countries.
"For foreign travel, it's not worth the paper it's written on," Mrs Antlett said.
"We just want a level playing field. We feel like we were misled [over the trial].
"Our GP was sympathetic, everyone is sympathetic. But all volunteers are left between a rock and a hard place, in limbo."
Half of Wales' population has had both Covid vaccine doses
Novavax is currently being assessed by the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and is subject to an European Medical Agency rolling review.
The company said it expected to file for authorisation in the third quarter of this year.
More than 15,000 people in the UK took part in the Novavax phase 3 trial, according to National Institute for Health Research, the UK government's medical research body.
In Wales, Mrs Antlett, 70, and her husband, who was 68 at the time, signed up with hundreds of others for the trials last November.
The couple said they were keen to help out in the fight against coronavirus, after being told they would not be disadvantaged and it would likely be approved in the spring of 2021.
Biotech firm Novavax has labs in the US (pictured) and has carried out trials in the UK and South Africa
They each received two doses in November in the "blind trial", where half of participants received a placebo.
When the mass rollout of approved vaccines begun, they were "unblinded" and both found out they had received Novavax.
"We were pleased we both had the vaccine, as it showed we had been protected since November, and were strongly advised not to have another," said Mrs Antlett.
"At the time, it seemed like Novavax would be authorised in late April, with the talk of vaccine passports. But when we began enquiries on dates, the trial teams seemed embarrassed."
Vale of Glamorgan MP Alun Cairns called it a "national and global effort" against coronavirus and said more help should be given to Novavax volunteers.
Vaccination centres across most of Wales are now open for people to walk in with no appointment
"A constituent who happened to be a nurse made herself available for the Novavax trial and was similarly blocked from travelling on a cruise later this year," said the former Welsh Secretary.
"When she contacted the helpdesk, they simply rejected her appeal."
However, Mr Cairns challenged them with a copy of an open letter published by UK deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam on 11 June.
He said in it: "We believe the added risk of allowing the relatively small number of clinical trial participants to travel (in the UK approximately 40,000 people, the vast majority of whom have been vaccinated) is strongly outweighed by the benefit of ensuring that recruitment and retention into clinical trials can continue."
Mr Cairns added that following this, the company immediately accepted the validity of the Novavax vaccine.
In Wales, 75% of under 50s have now had at least one jab
"It is a shame that it took an intervention from an MP," Mr Cairns said.
"All international travel organisations should be aware of the situation and not disadvantage those prepared to put themselves forward for a vaccine trial.
"This is a national and global effort against a pandemic and they should be saying thank you, not rejecting their requests."
The Welsh government said it was "grateful" to volunteers who took part in vaccine trials and other Covid treatment studies and added they "have made a significant contribution to the research effort".
"Vaccines not yet licensed but which have been given as part of a phase 3 trial are being recorded on national vaccination systems to ensure vaccination records are complete," a government spokeswoman added.
"Trial volunteers should speak to their doctor or trial team if they wish to discuss any issues relating to their trial vaccine."
The Welsh government's "strong advice" is to only travel overseas if it is "absolutely essential".
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England into Euro 2020 semi-final: 'England fans transported to unfamiliar world' - BBC Sport
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2021-07-03
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Watching England is not meant to be like this, but Gareth Southgate has got fans believing, writes Phil McNulty.
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Last updated on .From the section England
Dates: Venues: Coverage: Live on BBC TV, BBC Radio, BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app. Click here for more details
England supporters of long standing - and long suffering - were transported into an unfamiliar world as they watched Gareth Southgate's side cruise into the Euro 2020 semi-finals in the most majestic style in Rome.
It was Southgate himself who applied cold water to the celebrations and excitement after the last-16 win against Germany at Wembley set up what turned out to be the glorious formality of a 4-0 quarter-final win over Ukraine.
Southgate warned that first knockout win against Germany in 55 years would count for nothing unless England built on it. And build on it they did with a spectacular dismissal of Ukraine to set up a meeting with dangerous Denmark at Wembley on Wednesday.
No nerves. No worries. No concerns over expensive yellow cards. Just the enjoyment of wondering whether England might add more while sitting back, revelling in a performance that simply could not have been more controlled or comprehensive.
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• None 'Something special is happening' - Shearer, Ferdinand & Lampard react to England win
Yes, a very unfamiliar feeling for those who have followed England's fortunes at major tournaments. Watching England is not meant to be like this - or it certainly has not been in recent memory.
And before the arguments over the quality of the opposition or luck of the draw are made, just cast your mind back to those same words uttered before Roy Hodgson's England made a shameful exit against Iceland at Euro 2016 in the last 16.
In other words, this could have been a banana skin after the euphoria of victory over Germany at Wembley. Instead, England simply confirmed their growing authority and threat at Euro 2020.
Four wins, a draw and not a goal conceded in five games. Hugely impressive numbers.
And to add to the wave of expectation and excitement sweeping England's followers, Harry Kane released his personal pressure valve with his goal against Germany, and looked right back to his world-class best with two goals in Rome.
Southgate will, no doubt, urge caution, temper the expectation and (rightly) keep the nation in check before what will be a thunderous night in front of 60,000 at Wembley on Wednesday.
Best of luck with that Gareth.
Events over the past 55 years make England supporters of any age a naturally pessimistic breed - but Southgate's approach is changing all that.
His own stature is growing as he becomes only the second England men's manager after Sir Alf Ramsey to take them into two semi-finals at major tournaments following their run to the World Cup semi-final in 2018.
In Russia, there was always the underlying suspicion a top-class team would undo them and so it proved against Croatia - here, some of those doubts are disappearing.
England will start as favourites against Denmark but beware: the Danes have quality, character and are on a mission after Christian Eriksen's cardiac arrest during their opening defeat against Finland.
The 1992 champions seem fuelled by a sense of destiny and will not shrink from England's challenge.
Southgate and England just seem to have so much going for them, not least the fact they will play their semi-final in front of a vast home crowd at Wembley.
And at the heart of it all is Southgate, who has moved England's pieces around the board to perfection in Euro 2020, taking each match in isolation with a willingness to change a winning team to adjust to circumstances.
In doing so, in tandem with trusted assistant Steve Holland, he has shown the courage of his convictions, flexibility with tactics and personnel, and demonstrated the squad strength he has at his disposal.
Southgate reverted to a back four in Rome after using a three-man central defence against Germany, meaning a first start in Euro 2020 for Jadon Sancho, the gifted 21-year-old who has just agreed a £73m move from Borussia Dortmund to Manchester United.
Observers in Germany have expressed disbelief that Southgate feels he has been able to do without Sancho. But he waited until he believed the time was right, the youngster slotting in impressively in Rome.
Mason Mount, high class in recent times for England, was also back. Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson came off the bench to score, while the services of creators such as Phil Foden and Jack Grealish were not required.
And such has been the brilliance of Luke Shaw, whose quality of delivery from a free-kick and open play made goals for Harry Maguire and Harry Kane, that Chelsea's Champions League-winning left-back Ben Chilwell is currently on the margins.
Southgate has options in all areas.
Raheem Sterling is making an argument to be the player of Euro 2020 while, of huge significance, Kane's goal against Germany has jump started his tournament into action. With perfect timing he suddenly looks rejuvenated and the world-class striker Southgate knows he is.
Even those who feel that following England comes accompanied by a permanent dark cloud of pessimism may be tempted to feel a little sunshine poking through.
It would be foolish to dismiss Denmark but England in this mood and form should fear no-one.
An unfamiliar feeling - but one every England supporter in the country was basking in after this magnificent demolition of Ukraine sealed their first Euros semi-final since 1996.
Denmark now await at Wembley on Wednesday as England again attempt to reach their first major final since winning the World Cup in 1966.
It will be quite a night.
• None Listen to the latest Daily Euros podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live
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Government wins vote to lock in cuts to overseas aid - BBC News
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2021-07-13
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Boris Johnson sees off attempt by Tory MPs to restore development spending to 0.7% of national income.
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UK Politics
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The PM says there "must inevitably be consequences" for UK spending as it deals with the Covid pandemic.
The government has won a Commons vote to lock in cuts to spending on overseas aid, despite a rebellion by Tory MPs.
MPs voted by a majority of 35 to keep the budget for international development at 0.5% of national income.
But 25 Conservatives joined Labour and other parties in an attempt to reinstate the 0.7% figure, which was in place until earlier this year.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the cut was needed to keep public debt down during the pandemic.
The government has faced cross-party criticism over the reduction - which amounts to almost £4bn - including from all the UK's living former prime ministers.
Many Conservative MPs have spoken out against the move, announced last November despite a commitment to spending 0.7% in the party's 2019 election manifesto. Meeting the figure was made law in 2015.
Charities such as Oxfam and ActionAid have warned that projects are being called off as a result of the cuts.
But the government won by 333 votes to 298, following a three-hour debate.
The Conservative rebels included former Prime Minister Theresa May and ex-cabinet ministers Karen Bradley, Jeremy Hunt, David Davis, Stephen Crabb, Damian Green and Andrew Mitchell.
Opening the debate, Boris Johnson said the government had spent £407bn during the pandemic to "shelter our people from an economic hurricane never before experienced in living memory".
He added: "There must inevitably be consequences."
The prime minister added that the reduction was temporary and that people could "take pride that the UK will still contribute at least £10bn" to aid.
"This is not an argument about principle," he said. "The only question is when we return to 0.7% and my purpose today is to describe how we propose to achieve this shared goal in an affordable way."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Starmer: "No one in the House" is expecting the UK to spend as much on foreign aid as it was spending before Covid
But Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the cut was "not in the national interest", adding: "Every member here was elected on a manifesto promise to retain the 0.7% target."
He added: "Cutting aid will increase costs and have a big impact on our economy. Development aid reduces conflict. It reduces disease and people fleeing from their homes.
"It is a false economy to pretend that this is some sort of cut that doesn't have consequences."
Following the result of the vote, Chancellor Rishi Sunak said the "temporary" cut in aid spending would continue as planned.
He added: "Whilst not every member felt able to vote for the government's compromise, the substantive matter of whether we remain committed to the 0.7% target - not just now, but for decades to come - is clearly a point of significant unity in this House."
But former Conservative Prime Minister Sir John Major said: "The government has blatantly broken its word and should be ashamed of its decision.
"It seems that we can afford a 'national yacht' than no-one either wants or needs, while cutting help to some of the most miserable and destitute people in the world."
Oxfam GB chief executive Danny Sriskandarajah described the vote as "a disaster for the world's poorest people".
And Daniel Willis, of the campaign group Global Justice Now, said: "When the inevitable death and suffering from aid cuts hits the news, each and every MP who has voted to sever the UK's 0.7% commitment should know that blood is on their hands."
Last month, 30 Conservative MPs supported an amendment to a parliamentary bill, aimed at forcing the government to meet the 0.7% target.
Another 14 or so Tories would have had to join them in Tuesday's vote to ensure a government defeat.
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Foreign aid: Covid costs mean we have to cut payments, says PM - BBC News
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2021-07-13
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MPs vote after Boris Johnson says an "economic hurricane" has forced the reduction.
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UK
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The UK gives much of its humanitarian aid to Yemen, with projects similar to this one run by a Kuwaiti charity
Boris Johnson has defended the government's decision to cut foreign aid, saying this is needed during the "economic hurricane" caused by Covid.
MPs are voting on whether to reverse the reduction on development spending from 0.7% to 0.5% of national income, brought in earlier this year.
Opening a Commons debate, the prime minister said this was a temporary cut made to help reduce public borrowing.
But Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was "indefinite".
The government has faced cross-party criticism over the reduction, which amounts to almost £4bn.
Many Conservative MPs have spoken out against the move, announced last November despite a commitment to spending 0.7% in the party's 2019 election manifesto.
Meeting the 0.7% figure was made law in 2015, and it is an internationally recognised target, and charities such as Oxfam and ActionAid have warned that projects are being called off as a result of the cuts.
If MPs defeat the government in the vote, spending will revert to 0.7% of national income by January next year.
If the government wins, it will happen only when national debt is falling and borrowing is no longer used for day-to-day spending.
Last month, 30 Conservative MPs supported an amendment to a parliamentary bill, aimed at forcing the government to meet the 0.7% target.
If they oppose the cut again later, another 14 or so Tories would have to join them to ensure a government defeat.
Mr Johnson told MPs ministers had spent £407bn during the pandemic to "shelter our people from an economic hurricane never before experienced in living memory".
He added: "There must inevitably be consequences."
The prime minister said that this year national debt was expected to reach 100% of economic output, "the highest for nearly six decades".
He added that the reduction was temporary and the UK could "take pride that the UK will still contribute at least £10bn of our GDP" to aid.
"This is not an argument about principle," Mr Johnson said. "The only question is when we return to 0.7% and my purpose today is to describe how we propose to achieve this shared goal in an affordable way."
Governments only call votes if they think they can win.
Ministers will hope the concession of a vote, the offer of clarity about when aid might increase and the lack of time their opponents have had to organise will give them an edge and soften the Tory rebellion.
When it comes to whipping, the Treasury also has deep pockets and who knows what goodies might be on offer to dissident rebel MPs in the upcoming Spending Review?
If the government wins, there will be consequences.
The current status quo is that Downing Street is under political pressure to return aid spending to 0.7% of national income next year.
But if the Treasury wins today, that will not happen. Aid spending will be locked in for years.
How long will depend not just on the economy, but on Treasury's tax and spend decisions and its interpretation of some rather loose tests.
Both sides in this debate accept UK aid cuts have a material impact.
It is just a question of priorities - responsible belt-tightening at home or generosity abroad. But if the UK cuts aid by £4bn every year, then millions overseas will suffer.
But Sir Keir, who confirmed Labour would vote against the government, said the cut was "not in the national interest", adding: "Every member here was elected on a manifesto promise to retain the 0.7% target."
"Every living prime minister thinks this is wrong," he added. "There is only one prime minister who is prepared to do this and he is sitting there."
He later added: "Cutting aid will increase costs and have a big impact on our economy. Development aid reduces conflict. It reduces disease and people fleeing from their homes.
"It is a false economy to pretend that this is some sort of cut that doesn't have consequences."
Former Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, one of the Conservative MPs who have been highly critical of the cut, said she would also vote against the government, but "with regret".
"We made a promise to the poorest people in the world," she added. "The government has broken that promise."
And former Brexit Secretary David Davis called the cut to aid spending "morally reprehensible".
On Saturday, a group of philanthropists, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said they would provide £93.5m emergency funding to cover some of the UK's reduction.
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Wagatha Christie: Coleen Rooney wins latest round in legal fight with Rebekah Vardy - BBC News
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2021-07-07
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Vardy has been ordered to pay £10,500 toward her court rival's legal costs.
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Newsbeat
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Coleen Rooney (right) accused Rebekah Vardy of leaking stories to the press about her private life in 2019
Coleen Rooney has won the latest round of her court case against former friend Rebekah Vardy.
Vardy has been ordered to pay £10,500 towards Rooney's legal costs, the court decided.
The women will resume their High Court battle in September.
Rooney and her legal team told The Sun newspaper they were "pleased" with the result, and a spokesperson for Vardy said they were "completely confident" they would win the case.
Earlier this month, Vardy had parts of Coleen Rooney's defence thrown out by a judge, in the latest stage of their libel battle.
Jamie Vardy's wife is suing Rooney for libel after Rooney claimed fake stories had been leaked to newspapers by Vardy's Instagram account.
The row - in which the wife of ex-England player Wayne Rooney was dubbed "Wagatha Christie" - began in 2019.
The judge has allowed Rooney to keep other parts of her defence.
At a hearing in June, Vardy's lawyers said parts of Rooney's defence were "irrelevant or peripheral" to the case.
And on Wednesday the judge, Mrs Justice Steyn, agreed.
She dismissed a claim by Rooney that Vardy showed "publicity-seeking behaviour" when sitting behind her in someone else's seat at the 2016 Euros.
"The fact that a person seeks media coverage of their own attendance at a football match does not make it more probable that they would disclose private information about another person to the press," the judge said.
She also threw out an allegation that Vardy was leaking information on the libel case itself to the Sun newspaper.
But Mrs Justice Steyn did say the alleged close relationship between Vardy and the newspaper was "one of the building blocks" of Coleen Rooney's case.
Rebekah Vardy's lawyers previously told the court that the authorship of the Sun's column, The Secret Wag, was not relevant to the trial.
Rooney claims Vardy is the author of that column, but Vardy denies it.
Rooney's lawyers said it showed Vardy's "history and practice of publicly disclosing private information about other people she was friendly or associated with".
The judge found that the column was relevant to the case, so that bit of Rooney's defence is being kept.
Vardy's alleged close relationship with the Sun and its journalists is another part of Rooney's defence that the judge refused to throw out.
And she dismissed Vardy's bid for a summary judgment - a legal step which would see that part of the case resolved without a trial - in relation to Rooney's claim that Vardy leaked a story to the Sun about her returning to TV presenting.
The judge said: "It is one of many factual issues to be resolved at trial in determining whether the truth defence is made out."
Social media was set ablaze on 9 October 2019 when Coleen Rooney pressed send on her Instagram and Twitter posts, accusing Rebekah Vardy of leaking details about her life to the tabloids.
In an effort to work out which of her friends had been sharing stories, she'd published different fake stories on Instagram to different people, and monitored which ones ended up as newspaper stories.
Rebekah Vardy took to social media to deny any involvement in the leaking.
As the argument raged on, Vardy's lawyers said her husband faced abuse on the pitch which meant they couldn't let their young children attend games anymore.
Vardy decided to sue for defamation last year in July, with court documents written by her lawyers saying the incident had affected her mental and physical health.
When Rooney's social media posts were released, Vardy was seven months pregnant and her lawyers claim they led to her being taken to hospital three times with anxiety attacks.
The pair originally became friends through their husbands, former Manchester United and England player Wayne Rooney and Leicester striker Jamie Vardy.
Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.
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Euros 2020: What all of us can learn from Gareth Southgate - BBC News
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2021-07-07
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The England boss has turned to experts outside football to help prepare his team. Should we all take note?
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World
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Part of Gareth Southgate's success could be his willingness to turn to football outsiders to help prepare his England team. One of these advisers, former Olympian Matthew Syed, argues there's a lot the rest of the world can learn about this approach.
If there is one universal truth about human psychology, it is that we love being surrounded by people who think just like us. The Ancient Greeks called it "homophily" which means "love of the same". It was Plato who warned "birds of a feather flock together".
In some ways, this is the story of the England football set-up for the last three decades, the squad run by a true "footballing man" advised by other "footballing men". The idea is that if you get knowledgeable football chaps in a room, you will maximise the amount of knowledge - and thereby find a way to win matches.
This is why when Sir Clive Woodward - a world-class rugby coach - was appointed as an assistant coach at Southampton FC a few years ago, there was uproar. "But he's a rugby person", football insiders said in horror.
"If Harry Redknapp - the coach of Southampton at the time - needs advice, what is wrong with, say, Tony Pulis or David Pleat (both English based football coaches)? They are experts on football!"
The curious thing about these arguments is that they are, on the surface, persuasive. It is true that Pulis knows more about football than Woodward. But do you see the problem? Redknapp already knows what Pulis knows. They were each socialised into the assumptions of English football: a way of setting up tactically, diet, recovery, you name it. They are, if you like, intellectual "clones".
If you put Redknapp, Pulis and Pleat in a room - all good footballing men - you would have high individual knowledge, but you would also have collective uniformity. You would have an echo chamber. They would reflect each other's assumptions back to each other. It would be comfortable, chummy and consensual. It would also be monolithic and non-creative.
This tendency is a problem that extends beyond English football. When the CIA was founded in 1947, it hired brilliant analysts, but they also happened to look similar - white, middle-class, Anglo Saxon, Protestant males.
The recruiters, doubtless subconsciously, were influenced by homophily. As the academics Milo Jones and Philippe Silberzahn put it: "The first consistent attribute of the CIA's identity from 1947 to 2001 is homogeneity in terms of race, sex, ethnicity and class background."
Recruiting people who think the same way inhibits creativity
The same is true of many of the big tech firms such as Google which, a decade or so ago, wondered why innovation had dried up, despite hiring so many brilliant software engineers.
They then realised that they were hiring people from similar universities who had learned under similar professors and had absorbed a similar range of concepts, heuristics and models. They were "clones" of each other. Only when they started looking beyond their usual horizons, reaching out to different universities and social networks, did things change.
Gareth Southgate, the England head coach, has followed a different approach, opening himself up to new ideas from the outset.
One source of these ideas is the FA Technical Advisory Board, an eclectic group that has been advising on performance in regular meetings since 2016.
Members (all unpaid volunteers) include Sir Dave Brailsford, a cycling coach, Colonel Lucy Giles, a college commander at the Sandhurst Military Academy, the Olympic rower Dame Kath Grainger, Manoj Badale, a tech entrepreneur, the rugby coach Stuart Lancaster and David Sheepshanks, mastermind behind the St George's Park national football centre.
At first, football insiders were horrified by this group, with negative articles appearing in the British press. We are not "footballing men". But this is why the group is capable of offering fresh insights on preparation, diet, data, mental fortitude and more. This is sometimes called "divergent" thinking to contrast it with the "convergence" of echo chambers.
"I like listening to people who know things that I don't," Southgate told me. "That's how you learn."
Colonel Lucy Giles is among those giving Southgate performance advice
Southgate has also assembled a diverse group of coaches in Graeme Jones, Chris Powell and Martyn Margetson - individuals who have deep but very different experiences of the game. And, just as importantly, he's keen to listen to them: the moment England score, the celebration is curtailed so that Southgate can gain the input of Steve Holland, his assistant.
These diverse coaches are not rebels in the sense of seeking to disrupt the team. Rather, they are rebels in the sense of injecting fresh thinking which helps everyone perform better.
The tragedy is that people in echo chambers often don't even realise they are trapped. This is a point made by the novelist David Foster Wallace, who tells a story that starts in a fish tank. "There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish, who nods at them and says 'Morning, boys. How's the water?' And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then one of them looks at the other and goes, 'What the hell is water?'"
Wallace's point is that when we are surrounded by people who think the same way, we can overlook the obvious. Classic examples include Blockbuster, which missed the opportunities of the internet despite dominating the movie rental business, and Kodak, which was so fixated on print photography that it never took the opportunities afforded by digital.
His coaching staff was hand-picked for their diverse skills and backgrounds
The CIA missed an entire series of threats due to its clone-like recruits. A few more rebels could have changed everything. It wasn't until after the 9-11 attack that the CIA started to broaden its intake.
Of course, diversity shouldn't be pursued frivolously. If Brailsford, Giles, Badale, Grainger et al were advising not on football performance but how to design the Large Hadron Collider, they would be ineffectual. Introducing outsiders for the sake of it rarely works. The key is to bring people together whose perspectives are both relevant to the problem, and which are also different from each other. This maximises both "depth" and "range" of knowledge - leading to "collective intelligence".
The England football team haven't won the Euros, and there's a long way to go. But the power of diversity is beyond dispute, central to the strategies of many of the most cutting-edge institutions.
Echo chambers may be comfortable but they are inherently self-limiting. In the post-pandemic age, with the world changing faster than ever, it is diversity that unlocks the key to success.
Matthew Syed is author of Rebel Ideas: the Power of Diverse Thinking and represented Great Britain in table tennis at two Olympic Games
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-57698821
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news_world-57698821
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Trump sues Twitter, Google and Facebook alleging 'censorship' - BBC News
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2021-07-07
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The former president's accounts were suspended over safety concerns after the Capitol riots.
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US & Canada
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Former US president Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against tech giants Google, Twitter and Facebook, claiming that he is the victim of censorship.
The class action lawsuit also targets the three companies' CEOs.
Mr Trump was suspended from his social accounts in January over public safety concerns in the wake of the Capitol riots, led by his supporters.
On Wednesday, Mr Trump called the lawsuit "a very beautiful development for our freedom of speech".
In a news conference from his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, Mr Trump railed against social media companies and Democrats, who he accused of espousing misinformation.
"We are demanding an end to the shadow-banning, a stop to the silencing, and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing, and cancelling that you know so well," he said.
The suit requests a court order to end alleged censorship. Mr Trump added if they could ban a president, "they can do it to anyone".
None of the tech companies named have yet responded to the lawsuit, which was filed to a federal court in Florida.
Mr Trump was joined at the announcement by former Trump officials who have since created the not-for-profit America First Policy Institute.
The former president called the post that got him banned from Twitter, "the most loving sentence".
According to Twitter, the tweets that resulted in Mr Trump's ban for "glorification of violence" were from 8 January, two days after the rioting in the nation's capital. The riot followed his repeated claims, without evidence, that the election was rigged in Joe Biden's favour.
He wrote that the "great patriots" who voted for him will have "a giant voice" and "will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form", and in another post said he would not attend President Joe Biden's inauguration.
At the same time on Wednesday, Mr Trump's Republican allies in Congress released a memo describing their plan "to take on Big Tech".
The agenda calls for antitrust measures to "break up" the companies, and a revamping of a law known as Section 230.
Section 230, which Mr Trump tried to repeal as president, essentially stops companies like Facebook and Twitter from being liable for the things that users post. It gives the companies "platform" rather than "publisher" status.
"It's a liability protection the likes of which nobody in the history of our country has ever received," Mr Trump said, criticising the law on Wednesday.
He added that the law invalidates the companies' statuses as private companies.
The lawsuit has been criticised by legal experts, who pointed to Mr Trump's habit of issuing lawsuits for media attention but not aggressively defending the claims in court. His argument of free speech infringement has also been questioned by analysts, as the companies he accuses have those same First Amendment protections in determining content on their sites.
Donald Trump's muzzling on social media has been extremely effective.
His megaphone removed, Trump has struggled to be heard at times.
His plans for his own social media platform have so far come to nothing.
This lawsuit illustrates, if it were needed, just how important the big social media companies are to him.
A key strategy of Trumpism is being able to speak directly to voters - bypassing traditional media.
Facebook proved particularly important to Trump - giving him access to millions of Americans at the click of a button.
Experts believe the lawsuits are unlikely to succeed.
Mr Trump will argue that his First Amendment rights have been violated. But tech companies will say that, as private companies, they have the right to decide who uses their platform - an argument that is likely to succeed.
House Republicans, too, want to introduce legislation that will "break up" Big Tech. However, without a majority in either house they will struggle to do so.
Trump desperately wants to get back into your newsfeed, but that may not be likely to happen anytime soon.
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Covid: Cases in UK rise above 30,000 for first time since January - BBC News
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2021-07-07
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More than 32,500 confirmed cases have been reported in the country, up 43% on the same day last week.
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UK
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Coronavirus cases in the UK have risen above 30,000 for first time since January, official figures show.
Wednesday's data showed there had been a further 32,548 confirmed Covid cases.
And there were another 33 deaths reported within 28 days of a positive Covid test.
It comes as Boris Johnson has defended the government's approach to easing England's lockdown, saying the link between infection and serious disease and death has been "severed".
The prime minister has pledged to scrap most of England's coronavirus regulations at step four of the roadmap out of lockdown, expected on 19 July.
It means the government is now braced for a surge in coronavirus cases, possibly around 100,000 a day, as restrictions are lifted.
Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Johnson said it was "certainly true" there was a "wave of cases because of the Delta variant" of the virus.
"But scientists are also absolutely clear that we have severed the link between infection and serious disease and death," he said.
"Currently there are only a 30th of the deaths that we were seeing at an equivalent position in previous waves of this pandemic."
However, on Monday the government's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance was more cautious, saying vaccines had "weakened the link between cases and hospitalisations, but it's a weakened link, not a completely broken link".
Wednesday's daily figure for Covid cases in the UK is above 30,000 for the first time since 24 January.
In terms of hospitalisations, England is seeing more than 330 admissions a day on average at the moment. The most recent day - Monday - saw 416 admitted.
As of Wednesday, 2,144 people are in hospital in England with Covid - the first time this figure has topped 2,000 since April.
Wednesday's case total represents an increase from 28,700 on Tuesday.
It is not unusual for there to be a big jump on a Wednesday as a result of a weekend effect - slightly less testing is done.
What's important is the trend. Week on week this represents a 43% rise. That is actually down on what has been seen recently. They are going up quickly, but not as quickly as last week.
It's too early to say whether that is part of a longer-term pattern. But what is certain is that government officials are watching this data like hawks.
The policy of opening up in England is based on the hope that the virus will soon hit the wall of immunity built up by the vaccination programme and natural infection.
Ministers have said we should be prepared to see 100,000 cases a day. But they are hoping this wave of infection peaks well before that.
Because while the vaccination programme has weakened the link between cases and hospitalisation, it has not broken it entirely.
On current trends that many infections would lead to 2,000 daily admissions - twice what the NHS would normally see in the depths of winter for all types of respiratory illness.
The PM has also defended the timescale for ending self-isolation for contacts of Covid, insisting it is a "sensible approach".
The government has said people who are fully vaccinated will not have to self-isolate if they come into contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19 from 16 August.
Giving evidence to the Commons Liaison Committee, Mr Johnson rejected the suggestion 16 August had been chosen because it was when the government expected the population to have reached herd immunity .
"That's not the consideration… it's the time by which we feel that there will have been much more progress on vaccination," he said.
And the PM said to do it any sooner would "effectively be allowing many more people to be vector of disease."
"All decisions are a balance of risk," he said.
Asked how many people the government expected to end up self-isolating over the next month, he said: "That will depend on the spread. I haven't seen any data on that. It will depend on the numbers."
Meanwhile, World Health Organization emergencies director Dr Mike Ryan has urged countries to use extreme caution when reopening their economies from Covid restrictions so as "not to lose the gains you have made".
Asked at a briefing if the UK was aiming for herd immunity, Dr Ryan said: "I'm not aware that that's the logic driving our colleagues in the United Kingdom, I suspect it's not.
He said the argument that it was better to infect more people was morally empty and epidemiologically stupid.
Labour's leader Sir Keir Starmer has warned the prime minister he is leading the country into a "summer of chaos and confusion" over plans to ease lockdown.
At PMQs, he said the country should open up "in a controlled way" and urged Mr Johnson to ensure masks still have to be worn on public transport.
Face masks will no longer be legally required and distancing rules will be scrapped at the final stage of England's Covid lockdown roadmap.
The lifting of rules on 19 July will be confirmed next Monday after a review of the latest data.
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Government pingdemic response chaotic, say food supply firms - BBC News
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2021-07-25
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Supply firms are having to fight to keep food on supermarket shelves, an industry body warns.
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Business
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Government efforts to deal with the self-isolation "pingdemic" are "chaotic" and "too late", food supply industry bodies have said.
Supply firms are having to fight to keep supermarkets stocked with food, one industry body warned.
The government has been trying to ease the effects of workers having to self-isolate if they are "pinged" by the NHS Test and Trace app.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid said daily testing will help minimise disruption.
The number of people being sent NHS app alerts to self-isolate rapidly rose throughout July as infection rates soared, reaching a record 600,000 in the week to 14 July.
The government changed its stance last week and announced that some double-jabbed staff at some critical organisations would be allowed to take tests to keep coming to work, rather than self-isolating.
On Sunday, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said it had now contacted 500 sites that had been identified for daily contact testing.
Testing is understood to be rolling-out to key manufacturing, food processing and wholesale sites across the food supply chain, which will be joining large supermarket depots as part of the initial phase of the testing programme.
The number of roles that are exempt from isolation is also understood to have been widened to include roles such as forklift drivers and dispatchers.
But the government's response has been "very chaotic" and "too late", said James Bielby, chief executive of the Federation of Wholesale Distribution.
He said that a policy for exemptions was announced on Monday, but that there were no further details given until Thursday.
Many food businesses were still in the dark as to whether their staff could be included in the scheme, he added, with only 15 supermarket distribution centres with staff on the list on Friday.
"The process for getting on the list is entirely opaque," Mr Bielby said, adding that the government seemed to be making up the policy "on the hoof" in response to media reports.
Putting in place testing instead of self-isolation would have been better three weeks ago, Mr Bielby said, but now it was "too late" - especially as self-isolation is supposed to ease in three weeks' time.
He added that the "pingdemic" had been "really bad" for the food supply chain, as entire production lines in factories and entire driver fleets had been "taken out".
There was already a shortage of lorry drivers because of a combination of factors including Brexit, the Covid pandemic and changes to self-employment taxation, he added.
Shane Brennan, chief executive of the Cold Chain Federation, said the "pingdemic" had been a greater challenge for businesses than Covid itself.
"You can deal with problems as long as you have people working," Mr Brennan said. "The problem with the 'pingdemic' is that it takes lots of people out of the workforce."
Supermarkets have been dealing with rolling shortages of some stock as lorry driver numbers remain low
There are already rolling shortages of stock in supermarkets, and supply businesses are "fighting to keep food on the shelves", he said.
However, the application process for getting staff exemptions for self-isolation was "way too complicated" and came too late.
In addition, government departments did not appear to be working in a unified way.
"It's quite obvious that the government is having an argument with itself [over self-isolation]," he said.
Although the daily number of people testing positive for coronavirus has fallen over the past week to fewer than 32,000 per day, critical businesses have reported struggling with staff absences.
The Rail Delivery Group, which represents train companies, said that there could be disruption to services in the coming weeks.
Trains may be delayed, the Rail Delivery Group said
"While train companies are doing everything they can to minimise any disruption, there may be an impact on services so we are asking people to check before they travel using app alerts," a spokesperson said.
On Saturday, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), which runs Thameslink and Southern trains, said it would introduce a reduced timetable from Monday 26 July.
Non-essential businesses, including pubs and restaurants, have also struggled with staff getting pinged.
Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer & Pub Association, said: "Pubs are closing or greatly reducing their opening hours due to staff shortages caused by app pings - despite staff testing negative on lateral flow tests."
She said 43% of pub staff were aged 18 to 25 and would not have their second jab for months.
"We urge the government to work with us to find a sensible solution to this that still ensures staff and customer safety," she added.
However, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said: "As we learn to live with the virus, we must do everything we can to break chains of transmission and stop the spread of the virus.
"Daily contact testing of workers in these critical sectors will help to minimise any disruption caused by rising cases in the coming weeks, while ensuring staff are not put at risk."
A spokesperson said that as a first step, daily contact testing was being rolled out to critical workplaces in the food supply chain and that many sites would be operational from Monday 26 July.
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M&S to cut Christmas products in Northern Ireland - BBC News
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2021-07-22
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Chairman Archie Norman says customs checks will mean higher prices and less choice for customers.
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Business
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Marks & Spencer has warned it is already cutting Christmas products in Northern Ireland due to concerns over forthcoming post-Brexit customs checks.
Chairman Archie Norman told Radio Four's Today Programme the changes could mean higher prices and less choice for Northern Ireland customers.
Mr Norman said current "pointless" checks with the Republic of Ireland were "threatening" to its business.
He called for a "common sense approach to enforcement."
The UK is expected later to warn the EU it is prepared to unilaterally override the Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland if a simplified agreement cannot be reached.
Right now, supermarkets who send products there from Great Britain face only light-touch checks, under a so-called "grace period" which delayed some of the new processes. That runs out at the end of September.
The Northern Ireland Protocol helps prevent the need for checks on the island of Ireland's internal border.
But in the first warning from a major retailer on the scale of the potential problems, former Conservative party MP Mr Norman said once light-touch export checks end, there will be "gaps on the shelves".
"This Christmas, I can tell you already, we're having to make decisions to delist product for Northern Ireland because it's simply not worth the risk of trying to get it through," he said.
"We've already made that decision. We're waiting to see how serious it's going to be but if it's anything like southern Ireland (the Republic of Ireland), and at the moment it's set to be, then it's going to be very, very serious for customers."
Marks and Spencer is a major employer in Ireland, with more than 4,000 staff.
In a letter to Brexit minister Lord Frost, Mr Norman said the current EU customs arrangements were "totally unsuited and were never designed for a modern fresh food supply chain between closely intertwined trading partners".
"There is no other outcome for consumers in Northern Ireland in the end other than higher prices, given the inflationary pressures being put on to retailers by the regulatory regime," Mr Norman wrote.
"Being able to keep the show on the road, let alone growing, is going to be very challenging," he added.
Mr Norman told the BBC that "pettifogging enforcement" of the rules required M&S to employ 14 full-time vets, "simply ticking boxes and filling out forms", in order to certify its products.
"Sandwiches typically require three veterinary certificates to get through," he said.
Because of the way the system worked, M&S had had to give up exporting half its sandwich range to Ireland, he said.
If forms were filled in incorrectly, that meant delays, with everything on paper and nothing digital, Mr Norman said.
"If one page is blue instead of black typeface, the entire wagon is turned away," he added.
Mr Norman said that if the same regime was replicated in Northern Ireland at the end of September, it would be "incendiary" for the public there.
Mr Norman said M&S was one of the largest UK-based retailers operating in Ireland as a whole and played "a disproportionate role" in Northern Ireland.
"Our market share in Northern Ireland is almost double our share on the UK mainland. In part, this reflects our history as the only major UK retailer that committed to trade and invest continuously through the Troubles," he said.
"Our commitment and involvement with the people and communities of Northern Ireland remains strong. We are also a major employer and investor with over 4,000 people employed directly by M&S and many more in our supply chain."
He added that last year, M&S invested more than £10m in the business in Northern Ireland.
However, the issues raised by the current customs arrangements, in which Northern Ireland remains part of the EU Single Market while the rest of the UK has left, were "very threatening to our business", he said.
Ireland's European affairs minister Thomas Byrne said it was willing to discuss "any creative solutions".
"But we have to recognise as well that Britain decided itself to leave the single market of the European Union, to apply trade rules, to apply red tape to its goods that are leaving Britain, to goods that are coming into Britain," he added.
The EU has said a temporary Swiss-style veterinary agreement for Northern Ireland, in which the UK continues to follow EU agri-food rules, could be a solution, but it has been rejected by the UK.
In his letter, Mr Norman said he understood why the UK government was "not favourably disposed" to this solution, although he added that it was "by far the best way of delivering a smooth trade flow".
Regardless of this, he added, many problems could be solved by a willingness to overlook "trivial" errors in paperwork and efforts to set up a "trusted trader" scheme.
"Any scheme should start on the basis that we are prepared to follow EU standards for products going to Northern Ireland," he said.
"The debate is not about meeting standards, this is about what we are required to do to show we are compliant."
Number 10 said Mr Norman's letter was a "stark warning" of "the fundamental problems with the Protocol".
"That is why we need to urgently tackle these issues, to ensure there is minimal disruption to people's lives in Northern Ireland, as the Protocol itself intended," it added.
It plans to set out details later on its approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol.
The sort of products M&S is considering taking off the list for Northern Ireland this Christmas are ones containing a lot of different ingredients. For example, special occasion food like pies or pates, which people might order for a celebration.
Today, the company's chairman wants to send a message that the way post-Brexit rules on trade with EU countries have been implemented is making it extremely difficult to get products over to the Republic of Ireland, forcing the retailer to cut back the range it sells there.
And he fears Northern Ireland is heading the same way.
It won't be a co-incidence that Archie Norman's intervention comes just before we expect to hear more on the government's proposals. He presents an argument for introducing less disruptive trade processes after the grace periods expire.
Whether the EU will accept that is a whole other question.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57899239
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Liverpool stripped of Unesco World Heritage status - BBC News
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2021-07-22
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The city is deleted from the much-coveted Unesco list because of developments on the waterfront.
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Liverpool
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Liverpool's World Heritage status recognised the architectural landmarks on the waterfront
Liverpool has been stripped of its World Heritage status after a UN committee found developments threatened the value of the city's waterfront.
The decision was made following a secret ballot by the Unesco committee at a meeting in China.
Unesco had said that the developments, including the planned new Everton FC stadium, had resulted in a "serious deterioration" of the historic site.
The decision was described as "incomprehensible" by the city's mayor.
"Our World Heritage site has never been in better condition having benefitted from hundreds of millions of pounds of investment across dozens of listed buildings and the public realm," Joanne Anderson said.
She said she would work with the government to examine whether the city could appeal against the decision, which comes "a decade after Unesco last visited the city to see it with their own eyes".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The decision was made at a UN meeting in China
Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram said the decision was "a retrograde step that does not reflect the reality of what is happening on the ground".
"Places like Liverpool should not be faced with the binary choice between maintaining heritage status or regenerating left-behind communities and the wealth of jobs and opportunities that come with it," he said.
Labour's Kim Johnson, MP for Liverpool Riverside, said she remained "proud of my city and what we've done".
"People come here because it's amazing city and, while I'm disappointed, as a city we are resilient and we will always fight back."
An artist's impression of Everton's new stadium, which is being built at Bramley Moore Dock
The government said it was "extremely disappointed" and believes Liverpool still deserves its heritage status "given the significant role the historic docks and the wider city have played throughout history".
Liverpool becomes only the third site to lose its World Heritage status since the list began in 1978, the other two being Oman's Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in 2007 and the Dresden Elbe Valley in Germany in 2009.
Announcing the decision, the committee chairman said 20 votes had been cast - with 13 in favour of deleting the city, five against the proposal and two ballot papers being invalid.
Liverpool's Liberal Democrat leader Richard Kemp said it was a "day of shame" for the city, adding that it would "without a doubt, affect our tourism and inward investment".
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The city was awarded the much-coveted title in 2004 in recognition of its historical and architectural impact, joining places including the Taj Mahal, Egypt's Pyramids and Canterbury Cathedral.
It recognised its history as a major trading centre during the British Empire and its architectural landmarks.
However, a report in June by the World Heritage Committee said developments on the city's waterfront had resulted in "irreversible loss of attributes".
It cited the Liverpool Waters project and Everton's new stadium, which is being built at Bramley Moore Dock.
Chris Capes, director of development for Peel L&P's Liverpool Waters, said he was disappointed "particularly given the considerable investment that the city has put into protecting and improving its heritage sites".
Everton have agreed to invest up to £55m to "preserve, restore and celebrate the heritage assets" of the area as part of its stadium plan.
They project was approved following two public consultations, with the second survey attracting more than 40,000 people.
The club found 98% of people supported the proposed design of the stadium, while 96% backed the club's plans for historic features on the site.
Liverpool has seen more peaks and troughs than most, and it's a city which has changed immeasurably since 2004 when the World Heritage Status was conferred.
Back then, there was no Liverpool One shopping centre, no hint that Everton would consider building a multi-million pound waterfront stadium and its year as European Capital of Culture hadn't happened. The city has changed.
Today, there's a sense of defiance in some quarters about Unesco's decision that the city doesn't need the title, especially if sits in the way of progress for an area which has lain neglected and semi derelict for decades.
Critics argue the benefits of being a World Heritage status were never properly spelled out and there wasn't the political will in the city to address Unesco's concerns until recently, when it was too late.
Many people argue that tourists visiting the Pier Head, St George's Plateau or Penny Lane are not coming because Liverpool is a designated World Heritage site - they probably don't even realise it is.
They're coming for the Beatles, the football, food and the history but that history will remain.
Yet today's announcement worries those who fear that the ability to protect heritage, architecture and history is now diminished, that there will be a free-for-all of unsuitable, careless development.
The argument for the last decade has been presented as a binary choice: heritage or progress? The feeling in Liverpool is, couldn't we have had both?
Dr David Jeffery hopes the decision will act as a warning to the council
Dr David Jeffery, who is a lecturer of British politics at the University of Liverpool, said he believed the decision would not have a "serious impact" on the city's tourism industry.
"I do hope this serves as a warning to the council to stop approving ugly buildings though," he said.
Wayne Colquhoun, who has campaigned for 15 years to keep Liverpool's heritage status, said he was "devastated" by the news.
"It's the status symbol that has put us up there with the Great Wall of China and the pyramids and now it has gone," he said.
"You've got to be clever being a World Heritage city and be able to take traditional materials and build them in a modern manner."
Wayne Colquhoun said the decision would "stop people thinking that we are up there with the greatest cities on Earth"
Richie Wright, 40, who has lived in Liverpool all his life, said the status had "on many occasions, hampered and restricted development in a city that is ripe for development".
"I hope that Liverpool and its wider city region now seizes this opportunity to make common sense decisions that make our city and the world proud," he said.
World War One soldiers paraded outside St George's Hall in 1915
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Brexit: Lord Frost says EU and UK must find 'new balance' - BBC News
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2021-07-10
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The UK and EU need to find a "new balance" to solve NI Protocol problems, Lord Frost tells MLAs.
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Northern Ireland
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Lord Frost is appearing in person before the committee
The UK's Brexit minister has described negotiations with the EU over the Northern Ireland Protocol as "a little tense" at the moment.
Lord Frost appeared in person at Stormont's Executive Office committee on Friday.
He said the UK and EU needed to find a "new balance" to ensure problems with the protocol's implementation were resolved.
But he said elements of the protocol were also currently "working well".
Lord Frost's evidence to the committee came just a week after the EU's chief negotiator gave evidence to the committee.
Appearing before the committee, Lord Frost repeated that the government is preparing to publish its plans for the future of the protocol in the next fortnight, before Parliament rises for the summer recess.
He said the EU had still not responded to 12 papers tabled by the UK.
The EU has said a temporary Swiss-style veterinary agreement for Northern Ireland, in which the UK continues to follow EU agri-food rules, could be a solution, but it has been rejected by the UK.
Lord Frost accused the EU of being unreasonable in responding to some of the UK's concerns.
"Their solution is 'why don't you adopt our rules, then there won't be a problem'. We're accused of being ideological but it seems to me, equally ideological to say 'why don't you just adopt our laws?'"
He said there were possible resolutions but that "getting politics in the right place seems to be difficult".
Lord Frost's appearance at the committee comes just over a week after EU chief negotiator Maros Sefcovic addressed a Stormont committee
"It is a little tense at the moment. Nobody wants that but the protocol issues are at the core.
"There is a big prize if we can get this right, it does need both sides to take the situation seriously and fix the problems that currently exist," he added.
The protocol is the part of the Brexit deal which keeps Northern Ireland in the EU single market for goods and means EU customs rules are enforced at its ports.
It was agreed by the UK and EU in October 2019 and was subject to further negotiation and agreement in 2020.
Lord Frost helped to negotiate the protocol on behalf of the UK government, but previously said it was not being implemented as he intended.
Under the terms of the Brexit withdrawal treaty, the protocol can only be removed by a majority vote of the Stormont Assembly, with a vote due in 2024.
Committee chairman, the SDLP's Colin McGrath, said the government needed to "own your deal" and work to develop pragmatic solutions.
Sinn Féin's Pat Sheehan put it to Lord Frost that political problems with the protocol were being "completely overblown" and that a majority of businesses in Northern Ireland were supportive of the protocol.
The minister replied that GB-NI trade opportunities had changed and in some cases, disappeared, and that was not what the government had "wanted to achieve" when delivering Brexit.
"Nobody that I've spoken to from a wide range of political and civil society, businesses, nobody thinks it's working perfectly as it should, or have suggested improvements," he added.
Earlier on Friday, Lord Frost had met business representatives from Newry Chamber of Commerce and Trade, and other business leaders.
Former DUP Economy Minister Diane Dodds said the government needed to recognise that the protocol had no support from any unionist parties at Stormont.
"You and the EU have overridden consent and now want majority rule. What are you going to do to restore the balance of consent?," she asked.
Lord Frost said he had "a good deal of sympathy" for that argument.
"The consent mechanism is an albeit imperfect way of allowing the institutions here to say, looking at all these variances it's working tolerably, or looking at them all, it's not working," he added.
"If you don't have a fairly broad consent at most points, this is not simply something about in four years' time - you need to have broad consent to make it workable and that's why it worries us so much that we don't have it.
Ulster Unionist vice-chair of the committee, John Stewart asked Lord Frost to explain what any "rebalancing" of the protocol would look like.
Lord Frost said he would not reveal the details prior to a statement being made in Parliament, but added that the "fundamental issue" was finding a way to ensure goods could move from GB to NI in a "freer way than possible" at present.
Lord Frost's appearance at the committee comes just over a week after EU chief negotiator Maros Sefcovic gave evidence to MLAs about the post-Brexit Northern Ireland Protocol.
Last week, the EU agreed to a UK request to delay a ban on chilled meat products from Great Britain being sold in Northern Ireland.
Products such as chilled sausages were due to be prohibited from 1 July as a consequence of the protocol arrangement, but this has been postponed for another three months.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57770300
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Covid-19: Masks will become personal choice, says Robert Jenrick - BBC News
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2021-07-04
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Robert Jenrick says mask laws in England could go but Scotland says there will be an "ongoing need".
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UK
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Robert Jenrick says it is time to take "personal responsibility" on taking precautions like wearing masks
England will move into a period without legal restrictions where the public will have to exercise "personal responsibility" including on face masks, the housing secretary has said.
Robert Jenrick told the BBC's Andrew Marr people would "come to different conclusions" over masks, but he trusted people "to exercise good judgement".
All legal restrictions are expected to be lifted in England on 19 July.
The Scottish government said there would be an "ongoing need" for masks.
A spokesperson said people could still be expected to wear face coverings on public transport and in shops even after other curbs lift in Scotland on 9 August.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are in charge of their own coronavirus rules. On face masks and other measures, the Westminster government is working with counterparts in the other nations on a UK-wide approach.
In Wales, minister Mick Antoniw said it was "moving to a stage where we are having increasing normality" with the next review of curbs due on 15 July.
Mr Jenrick said on Sunday he would like the whole union to move as one.
A further 24,248 Covid cases and 15 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were recorded in the UK on Sunday.
When asked on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show whether he was confident that all restrictions would end in England on 19 July, Mr Jenrick said: "It does look as if - thanks to the success of the vaccine programme - that we now have the scope to roll back those restrictions and return to a normality as far as possible."
He said cases might continue to rise significantly as restrictions were eased.
"But we now have to move into a different period where we learn to live with the virus, we take precautions and we as individuals take personal responsibility," he said.
When asked if the requirement to wear face masks in certain settings will definitely go, Mr Jenrick said: "I can't make that commitment this morning because the prime minister will make an announcement in the coming days - it does look as if the data is in the right place."
He urged people to get fully vaccinated and, when asked about travel, said the government was "still looking at the data" in terms of allowing those who have been double-jabbed to avoid quarantine when returning from amber list countries - but it was their objective.
Asked on Sky News about whether he would stop wearing his face mask if the rules allowed, Mr Jenrick said he would, because he did not particularly want to wear one.
But he said: "We will be moving into a phase where these will be matters of personal choice. So some members of society will want to do so for perfectly legitimate reasons but it will be a different period where we as private citizens make these judgements rather than the government telling you what to do."
Mr Jenrick added: "We are now going to move into a period where there won't be legal restrictions - the state won't be telling you what to do - but you will want to exercise a degree of personal responsibility and judgement."
Prof Stephen Powis, NHS England's medical director, said if some people continued to wear face masks in certain circumstances, such as crowded places, then "that's not necessarily a bad thing". "Those habits to reduce infections are a good thing to keep," he added.
He said the link between coronavirus infections, hospital admissions and deaths had not been totally broken as there were people in hospital who had been vaccinated.
"But it's severely weakened," he said.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Some may choose to be cautious after 19 July, says NHS England's medical director, Prof Stephen Powis
Mr Jenrick also said the government would be making a statement on school bubbles - the system that means entire groups of pupils have to self-isolate if one pupil within the group tests positive - ahead of 19 July.
Critics say the bubble system is disruptive, and official figures this week showed hundreds of thousands of children had been sent home from school because of it. The education secretary has also said he want to replace the bubble system with a different approach.
"As a parent I've seen it first hand," Mr Jenrick told Times Radio on Sunday. "It's extremely frustrating. We want to see that come to an end and to move to a different and better system."
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said there was a compelling argument that easing Covid restrictions was needed for the country's health.
He said the rules had caused a shocking rise in domestic violence and a terrible impact on mental health.
And he said England was on track to meet the fourth and final stage of lockdown lifting - but that "cases are going to rise significantly" and "no date we choose will ever come without risk".
Mr Javid also warned the backlog facing the NHS would get "far worse before it gets better", as millions of people had avoided coming forward for healthcare during the pandemic.
The British Medical Association (BMA) has said measures such as mandatory face coverings in certain settings should stay in place as it warned the number of people admitted to hospitals in England with Covid-19 had risen by 55% in a week.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul, BMA council chairman, called the jump in cases alarming and said: "It makes no sense to remove restrictions in their entirety in just over two weeks' time."
The BMA called for the continued use of masks and new ventilation standards, among other measures.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57710527
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England into Euro 2020 semi-final: 'England fans transported to unfamiliar world' - BBC Sport
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2021-07-04
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Watching England is not meant to be like this, but Gareth Southgate has got fans believing, writes Phil McNulty.
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Last updated on .From the section England
Dates: Venues: Coverage: Live on BBC TV, BBC Radio, BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app. Click here for more details
England supporters of long standing - and long suffering - were transported into an unfamiliar world as they watched Gareth Southgate's side cruise into the Euro 2020 semi-finals in the most majestic style in Rome.
It was Southgate himself who applied cold water to the celebrations and excitement after the last-16 win against Germany at Wembley set up what turned out to be the glorious formality of a 4-0 quarter-final win over Ukraine.
Southgate warned that first knockout win against Germany in 55 years would count for nothing unless England built on it. And build on it they did with a spectacular dismissal of Ukraine to set up a meeting with dangerous Denmark at Wembley on Wednesday.
No nerves. No worries. No concerns over expensive yellow cards. Just the enjoyment of wondering whether England might add more while sitting back, revelling in a performance that simply could not have been more controlled or comprehensive.
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• None 'England not settling for the semis' - Maguire
• None Denmark beat Czechs to reach last four
• None England thrash Ukraine to set up first Euros semi-final for 25 years
• None 'Something special is happening' - Shearer, Ferdinand & Lampard react to England win
Yes, a very unfamiliar feeling for those who have followed England's fortunes at major tournaments. Watching England is not meant to be like this - or it certainly has not been in recent memory.
And before the arguments over the quality of the opposition or luck of the draw are made, just cast your mind back to those same words uttered before Roy Hodgson's England made a shameful exit against Iceland at Euro 2016 in the last 16.
In other words, this could have been a banana skin after the euphoria of victory over Germany at Wembley. Instead, England simply confirmed their growing authority and threat at Euro 2020.
Four wins, a draw and not a goal conceded in five games. Hugely impressive numbers.
And to add to the wave of expectation and excitement sweeping England's followers, Harry Kane released his personal pressure valve with his goal against Germany, and looked right back to his world-class best with two goals in Rome.
Southgate will, no doubt, urge caution, temper the expectation and (rightly) keep the nation in check before what will be a thunderous night in front of 60,000 at Wembley on Wednesday.
Best of luck with that Gareth.
Events over the past 55 years make England supporters of any age a naturally pessimistic breed - but Southgate's approach is changing all that.
His own stature is growing as he becomes only the second England men's manager after Sir Alf Ramsey to take them into two semi-finals at major tournaments following their run to the World Cup semi-final in 2018.
In Russia, there was always the underlying suspicion a top-class team would undo them and so it proved against Croatia - here, some of those doubts are disappearing.
England will start as favourites against Denmark but beware: the Danes have quality, character and are on a mission after Christian Eriksen's cardiac arrest during their opening defeat against Finland.
The 1992 champions seem fuelled by a sense of destiny and will not shrink from England's challenge.
Southgate and England just seem to have so much going for them, not least the fact they will play their semi-final in front of a vast home crowd at Wembley.
And at the heart of it all is Southgate, who has moved England's pieces around the board to perfection in Euro 2020, taking each match in isolation with a willingness to change a winning team to adjust to circumstances.
In doing so, in tandem with trusted assistant Steve Holland, he has shown the courage of his convictions, flexibility with tactics and personnel, and demonstrated the squad strength he has at his disposal.
Southgate reverted to a back four in Rome after using a three-man central defence against Germany, meaning a first start in Euro 2020 for Jadon Sancho, the gifted 21-year-old who has just agreed a £73m move from Borussia Dortmund to Manchester United.
Observers in Germany have expressed disbelief that Southgate feels he has been able to do without Sancho. But he waited until he believed the time was right, the youngster slotting in impressively in Rome.
Mason Mount, high class in recent times for England, was also back. Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson came off the bench to score, while the services of creators such as Phil Foden and Jack Grealish were not required.
And such has been the brilliance of Luke Shaw, whose quality of delivery from a free-kick and open play made goals for Harry Maguire and Harry Kane, that Chelsea's Champions League-winning left-back Ben Chilwell is currently on the margins.
Southgate has options in all areas.
Raheem Sterling is making an argument to be the player of Euro 2020 while, of huge significance, Kane's goal against Germany has jump started his tournament into action. With perfect timing he suddenly looks rejuvenated and the world-class striker Southgate knows he is.
Even those who feel that following England comes accompanied by a permanent dark cloud of pessimism may be tempted to feel a little sunshine poking through.
It would be foolish to dismiss Denmark but England in this mood and form should fear no-one.
An unfamiliar feeling - but one every England supporter in the country was basking in after this magnificent demolition of Ukraine sealed their first Euros semi-final since 1996.
Denmark now await at Wembley on Wednesday as England again attempt to reach their first major final since winning the World Cup in 1966.
It will be quite a night.
• None Listen to the latest Daily Euros podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live
• None Have the promises of the Leave campaign been kept?
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Euros 2020: What all of us can learn from Gareth Southgate - BBC News
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2021-07-08
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The England boss has turned to experts outside football to help prepare his team. Should we all take note?
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World
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Part of Gareth Southgate's success could be his willingness to turn to football outsiders to help prepare his England team. One of these advisers, former Olympian Matthew Syed, argues there's a lot the rest of the world can learn about this approach.
If there is one universal truth about human psychology, it is that we love being surrounded by people who think just like us. The Ancient Greeks called it "homophily" which means "love of the same". It was Plato who warned "birds of a feather flock together".
In some ways, this is the story of the England football set-up for the last three decades, the squad run by a true "footballing man" advised by other "footballing men". The idea is that if you get knowledgeable football chaps in a room, you will maximise the amount of knowledge - and thereby find a way to win matches.
This is why when Sir Clive Woodward - a world-class rugby coach - was appointed as an assistant coach at Southampton FC a few years ago, there was uproar. "But he's a rugby person", football insiders said in horror.
"If Harry Redknapp - the coach of Southampton at the time - needs advice, what is wrong with, say, Tony Pulis or David Pleat (both English based football coaches)? They are experts on football!"
The curious thing about these arguments is that they are, on the surface, persuasive. It is true that Pulis knows more about football than Woodward. But do you see the problem? Redknapp already knows what Pulis knows. They were each socialised into the assumptions of English football: a way of setting up tactically, diet, recovery, you name it. They are, if you like, intellectual "clones".
If you put Redknapp, Pulis and Pleat in a room - all good footballing men - you would have high individual knowledge, but you would also have collective uniformity. You would have an echo chamber. They would reflect each other's assumptions back to each other. It would be comfortable, chummy and consensual. It would also be monolithic and non-creative.
This tendency is a problem that extends beyond English football. When the CIA was founded in 1947, it hired brilliant analysts, but they also happened to look similar - white, middle-class, Anglo Saxon, Protestant males.
The recruiters, doubtless subconsciously, were influenced by homophily. As the academics Milo Jones and Philippe Silberzahn put it: "The first consistent attribute of the CIA's identity from 1947 to 2001 is homogeneity in terms of race, sex, ethnicity and class background."
Recruiting people who think the same way inhibits creativity
The same is true of many of the big tech firms such as Google which, a decade or so ago, wondered why innovation had dried up, despite hiring so many brilliant software engineers.
They then realised that they were hiring people from similar universities who had learned under similar professors and had absorbed a similar range of concepts, heuristics and models. They were "clones" of each other. Only when they started looking beyond their usual horizons, reaching out to different universities and social networks, did things change.
Gareth Southgate, the England head coach, has followed a different approach, opening himself up to new ideas from the outset.
One source of these ideas is the FA Technical Advisory Board, an eclectic group that has been advising on performance in regular meetings since 2016.
Members (all unpaid volunteers) include Sir Dave Brailsford, a cycling coach, Colonel Lucy Giles, a college commander at the Sandhurst Military Academy, the Olympic rower Dame Kath Grainger, Manoj Badale, a tech entrepreneur, the rugby coach Stuart Lancaster and David Sheepshanks, mastermind behind the St George's Park national football centre.
At first, football insiders were horrified by this group, with negative articles appearing in the British press. We are not "footballing men". But this is why the group is capable of offering fresh insights on preparation, diet, data, mental fortitude and more. This is sometimes called "divergent" thinking to contrast it with the "convergence" of echo chambers.
"I like listening to people who know things that I don't," Southgate told me. "That's how you learn."
Colonel Lucy Giles is among those giving Southgate performance advice
Southgate has also assembled a diverse group of coaches in Graeme Jones, Chris Powell and Martyn Margetson - individuals who have deep but very different experiences of the game. And, just as importantly, he's keen to listen to them: the moment England score, the celebration is curtailed so that Southgate can gain the input of Steve Holland, his assistant.
These diverse coaches are not rebels in the sense of seeking to disrupt the team. Rather, they are rebels in the sense of injecting fresh thinking which helps everyone perform better.
The tragedy is that people in echo chambers often don't even realise they are trapped. This is a point made by the novelist David Foster Wallace, who tells a story that starts in a fish tank. "There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish, who nods at them and says 'Morning, boys. How's the water?' And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then one of them looks at the other and goes, 'What the hell is water?'"
Wallace's point is that when we are surrounded by people who think the same way, we can overlook the obvious. Classic examples include Blockbuster, which missed the opportunities of the internet despite dominating the movie rental business, and Kodak, which was so fixated on print photography that it never took the opportunities afforded by digital.
His coaching staff was hand-picked for their diverse skills and backgrounds
The CIA missed an entire series of threats due to its clone-like recruits. A few more rebels could have changed everything. It wasn't until after the 9-11 attack that the CIA started to broaden its intake.
Of course, diversity shouldn't be pursued frivolously. If Brailsford, Giles, Badale, Grainger et al were advising not on football performance but how to design the Large Hadron Collider, they would be ineffectual. Introducing outsiders for the sake of it rarely works. The key is to bring people together whose perspectives are both relevant to the problem, and which are also different from each other. This maximises both "depth" and "range" of knowledge - leading to "collective intelligence".
The England football team haven't won the Euros, and there's a long way to go. But the power of diversity is beyond dispute, central to the strategies of many of the most cutting-edge institutions.
Echo chambers may be comfortable but they are inherently self-limiting. In the post-pandemic age, with the world changing faster than ever, it is diversity that unlocks the key to success.
Matthew Syed is author of Rebel Ideas: the Power of Diverse Thinking and represented Great Britain in table tennis at two Olympic Games
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Covid: Cases in UK rise above 30,000 for first time since January - BBC News
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2021-07-08
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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More than 32,500 confirmed cases have been reported in the country, up 43% on the same day last week.
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UK
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Coronavirus cases in the UK have risen above 30,000 for first time since January, official figures show.
Wednesday's data showed there had been a further 32,548 confirmed Covid cases.
And there were another 33 deaths reported within 28 days of a positive Covid test.
It comes as Boris Johnson has defended the government's approach to easing England's lockdown, saying the link between infection and serious disease and death has been "severed".
The prime minister has pledged to scrap most of England's coronavirus regulations at step four of the roadmap out of lockdown, expected on 19 July.
It means the government is now braced for a surge in coronavirus cases, possibly around 100,000 a day, as restrictions are lifted.
Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Johnson said it was "certainly true" there was a "wave of cases because of the Delta variant" of the virus.
"But scientists are also absolutely clear that we have severed the link between infection and serious disease and death," he said.
"Currently there are only a 30th of the deaths that we were seeing at an equivalent position in previous waves of this pandemic."
However, on Monday the government's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance was more cautious, saying vaccines had "weakened the link between cases and hospitalisations, but it's a weakened link, not a completely broken link".
Wednesday's daily figure for Covid cases in the UK is above 30,000 for the first time since 24 January.
In terms of hospitalisations, England is seeing more than 330 admissions a day on average at the moment. The most recent day - Monday - saw 416 admitted.
As of Wednesday, 2,144 people are in hospital in England with Covid - the first time this figure has topped 2,000 since April.
Wednesday's case total represents an increase from 28,700 on Tuesday.
It is not unusual for there to be a big jump on a Wednesday as a result of a weekend effect - slightly less testing is done.
What's important is the trend. Week on week this represents a 43% rise. That is actually down on what has been seen recently. They are going up quickly, but not as quickly as last week.
It's too early to say whether that is part of a longer-term pattern. But what is certain is that government officials are watching this data like hawks.
The policy of opening up in England is based on the hope that the virus will soon hit the wall of immunity built up by the vaccination programme and natural infection.
Ministers have said we should be prepared to see 100,000 cases a day. But they are hoping this wave of infection peaks well before that.
Because while the vaccination programme has weakened the link between cases and hospitalisation, it has not broken it entirely.
On current trends that many infections would lead to 2,000 daily admissions - twice what the NHS would normally see in the depths of winter for all types of respiratory illness.
The PM has also defended the timescale for ending self-isolation for contacts of Covid, insisting it is a "sensible approach".
The government has said people who are fully vaccinated will not have to self-isolate if they come into contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19 from 16 August.
Giving evidence to the Commons Liaison Committee, Mr Johnson rejected the suggestion 16 August had been chosen because it was when the government expected the population to have reached herd immunity .
"That's not the consideration… it's the time by which we feel that there will have been much more progress on vaccination," he said.
And the PM said to do it any sooner would "effectively be allowing many more people to be vector of disease."
"All decisions are a balance of risk," he said.
Asked how many people the government expected to end up self-isolating over the next month, he said: "That will depend on the spread. I haven't seen any data on that. It will depend on the numbers."
Meanwhile, World Health Organization emergencies director Dr Mike Ryan has urged countries to use extreme caution when reopening their economies from Covid restrictions so as "not to lose the gains you have made".
Asked at a briefing if the UK was aiming for herd immunity, Dr Ryan said: "I'm not aware that that's the logic driving our colleagues in the United Kingdom, I suspect it's not.
He said the argument that it was better to infect more people was morally empty and epidemiologically stupid.
Labour's leader Sir Keir Starmer has warned the prime minister he is leading the country into a "summer of chaos and confusion" over plans to ease lockdown.
At PMQs, he said the country should open up "in a controlled way" and urged Mr Johnson to ensure masks still have to be worn on public transport.
Face masks will no longer be legally required and distancing rules will be scrapped at the final stage of England's Covid lockdown roadmap.
The lifting of rules on 19 July will be confirmed next Monday after a review of the latest data.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57755733
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Brexit: NI Protocol is lawful, High Court rules - BBC News
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2021-07-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Unionist politicians, including Arlene Foster and Lord Trimble, challenged the protocol in a judicial review.
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Northern Ireland
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Unionist leaders had argued the protocol was not compatible with EU law
The Northern Ireland Protocol is lawful, a High Court judge in Belfast has ruled.
A group of unionist politicians, including Arlene Foster and Lord Trimble, had challenged the protocol in judicial review proceedings.
They claimed it was unlawful because it conflicts with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and the Acts of Union.
But Mr Justice Colton rejected their challenge on all grounds on Wednesday afternoon.
Mr Colton found that the Withdrawal Agreement Act, which includes the protocol, does conflict with the 1800 Acts of Union in respect of free trade between Britain and Northern Ireland.
However, he added that the relevant parts of the Acts of Union are "impliedly repealed" by the Withdrawal Agreement Act.
That means that the more recent legislation automatically overrides the older laws.
He said the Acts of Union could not be used to override the "clear specific will of Parliament".
Normally, a constitutional law, like the Acts of Union, can only be expressly repealed, but they can be impliedly by another constitutional law.
The judge said the Withdrawal Agreement Act meets the definition of a constitutional law.
He also rejected the argument that the protocol had changed the constitutional status as defined in the Good Friday Agreement.
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Furthermore, he found that the secretary of state did have the power to change Stormont's usual cross-community voting mechanism.
Normally, Stormont must approve controversial issues by a cross-community vote but the protocol will be subject to a straight-majority vote.
The judge said the secretary of state had the power to do this on two grounds: that it was necessary to reflect the will of Parliament in implementing the Withdrawal Agreement Act and that it concerns international relations which is not a devolved matter.
Further areas of challenge concerning EU law were also rejected.
The judge was also critical of an analogy used by the applicants' barrister when he compared the operation of the protocol to the Vichy regime.
Vichy was the collaborationist French administration during the Nazi occupation.
The judge said such a comparison was "unhelpful".
An adjoining case, taken by Belfast pastor Clifford Peeples, was also dismissed by the judge.
Others pursuing the lead judicial review case included former Ulster Unionist leader Steve Aiken, TUV leader Jim Allister, former Brexit Party MEP Ben Habib and Baroness Hoey.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. 'NI and GB have been severed by the Protocol'
Wednesday's judgement is likely to be appealed and the case could ultimately be heard by the Supreme Court before the end of 2021.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the government would "study in detail" the High Court ruling, after being asked about it during Prime Minister's Questions.
DUP MP Ian Paisley asked if the government would "reverse the mistakes of the Northern Ireland Protocol, seize the moment, defend the union to unilaterally fix and put Northern Ireland out of its commercial, social and economic misery".
Mr Johnson said: "Nothing will affect the position of Northern Ireland as part of the UK - we will make sure we uphold that."
Alliance MP Stephen Farry also urged the prime minister to accept the ruling as a "watershed where we can stop talking about the protocol in constitutional and identity terms".
The prime minister replied that the "best thing" the EU could do was remove all the problems associated with the protocol's application.
"I hope all that can be fixed indeed and then we can move on," he added.
DUP leader designate Sir Jeffrey Donaldson described the ruling as "politically significant" and would have potential consequences for "the future stability of political institutions".
In a tweet, he said the judgement confirmed the "protocol damages our constitutional position in the UK contrary to the principle of consent and various agreements".
Ulster Unionist MLA Steve Aiken said his party acknowledged the decision, but said it is "an issue of such magnitude that it needs to be appealed to a higher court".
Speaking at a press conference in Belfast following the judgement, Mr Habib said: "The only positive you might put on it is we do now officially know that the union of the United Kingdom has been trampled on by the protocol."
Mr Habib said the prime minister now "has to face up to the reality that his own judicial system has said that the union of the United Kingdom has been broken".
Former Labour MP Kate Hoey - now Baroness Hoey - said it must be "absolutely clear that this is only the beginning of the legal challenge and also of peoples' protests against what has been done to us without consent".
TUV leader Jim Allister said the court ruling "confirmed the protocol is dismantling the union".
Mr Allister said the ruling "underscores the necessity to step up the political battle against the protocol".
He said the UK government must "now reverse the mistake of repeal, if the PM's words mean anything".
"No more propping up the Belfast Agreement institutions while the protocol manoeuvres us out of the union," he added.
Sinn Féin MLA Declan Kearney said "there is no credible alternative to the protocol".
"It's ironic that the Tory/DUP cheerleaders of Brexit are now so opposed to the protocol that was made necessary by their reckless pursuit of a hard Brexit," he said.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57666255
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Guto Harri quits GB News over taking the knee row - BBC News
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2021-07-19
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The journalist was suspended for a gesture made during a chat about the abuse of black footballers.
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Entertainment & Arts
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Broadcaster Guto Harri has quit GB News after he was suspended for taking the knee during a discussion about racism towards England's black footballers.
Harri confirmed his decision to leave the new channel to BBC Wales on Sunday.
Last week, GB News apologised after the TV journalist made the gesture, which it said breached its standards.
On Friday, incoming presenter and former Ukip leader Nigel Farage said he "will not be taking the knee for anyone" on his new show.
In his resignation letter, seen by the BBC, Harri asked the organisation to "please explain how that [Farage's stance] does not breach editorial standards but I did".
The BBC has asked GB News for a comment.
Writing in The Sunday Times, Harri, a former BBC correspondent and advisor to Boris Johnson when he was Mayor of London, noted how when he had joined the new channel he "liked and trusted those in charge and supported the broad vision".
However, he declared that GB News was "rapidly becoming an absurd parody of what it proclaimed to be".
He said he had discussed taking the knee with colleagues and superiors prior to doing so on-air and was not asked to refrain from doing so.
"GB News captured the moment and proudly cascaded it through social media," he wrote. "Watch five minutes of the channel and you'll see how presenters are encouraged to speak freely, confront sensitive subjects, engage in difficult debates and make a case.
Guto Harri is a former GB News and BBC journalist, who was also a former advisor to Boris Johnson when he was Mayor of London
"However, what followed was a tsunami of disappointment, resentment and hate. Old friends were amused to see me described as woke and Marxist. By Thursday night, the boss called and I'd been taken off air for the summer."
He added: "Whatever nerdy academics tell you about Black Lives Matter associations, taking the knee is now a simple, bold statement that you reject racism. And if that's an issue for a channel or government, it's a big problem for all of us."
His actions sparked a backlash and boycott threat from some viewers, prompting officials from the channel to admit: "We let both sides of the argument down by oversimplifying a very complex issue."
GB News chair Andrew Neil has said the channel is "finding its feet" but has a "great future" ahead of it.
Meanwhile, another GB News presenter, Alistair Stewart, will be off air for a while after one of his horses bolted and knocked him over, breaking his hip.
Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.
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Agree with him or not, Dominic Cummings's words matter - BBC News
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2021-07-19
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Boris Johnson's former adviser sits down for his first interview - so what have we learned?
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UK Politics
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Everyone knows Dominic Cummings's name, and usually not for flattering reasons.
Having covered politics for nearly 20 years, it is at the heart of my job to get to know senior figures in all the political parties, and advisers in government and in opposition.
But I have never known a backroom figure who has caused such rage, or who has enjoyed stirring up his opponents quite as much.
It's no secret that he has fallen out with Boris Johnson in spectacular style. It's hard to think of a bust-up and betrayal that's been as vicious and sustained.
Mr Cummings has written thousands of words about what he sees as Mr Johnson's flaws already.
He gave seven hours of brutally unrelenting evidence to MPs about the many things that he believes went wrong during the government's handling of the pandemic.
The former aide is an important witness to recent history but has his own agenda, and has been accused of trying to rewrite that history to give himself a more flattering role.
Mr Cummings has never before though agreed to sit down and account for his own role in the pandemic, and also be questioned about his own efforts helping Mr Johnson in office, securing a Brexit deal and a huge election victory, or his time as boss of the Vote Leave campaign.
Dominic Cummings spent seven hours setting out his grievances during a recent session with MPs
Indeed, the first time that he promised he would do an interview, one day, was after the referendum in 2016, when we asked if he would answer questions about how he ran that campaign, how it behaved, and how it won.
In the five years that followed so much has happened that has changed the UK.
Cummings's detractors would say he is responsible for much of the political trauma. He became a household name because of the public outrage at his journey out of lockdown.
No-one was closer to the prime minister in government for more than a year.
Aside from Mr Johnson himself, perhaps no one else's decisions and judgements counted as much over a crucial period.
Arguably, no one other political campaigner's view of the world made such a difference to the country in recent times.
And certainly, no one other political adviser has inspired such venom, attracted such conspiracy theories, and launched thousands of memes.
There are many people in the Conservative Party who believe his credibility is shot because of how he has explicitly tried to attack Mr Johnson in recent months.
MPs have already expressed frustration that, in their view, he hasn't provided overwhelming evidence of the explosive claims he's already made.
Given his own reputation for provocation and playing with reality as a campaigner, it's not unreasonable to wonder if he can be believed now.
Dominic Cummings is not known as a formal dresser
His arguments at times can seem contradictory, even though it feels like he has clear scripts in his head that he wants to follow.
Mr Cummings styles himself as someone who only wants to do what he thinks is the right thing, whatever it takes, and doesn't care very much what anyone else thinks.
Despite his normal sartorial choices - crumpled shirts, beanie hats and tracksuit bottoms while in No 10 - he cared enough when we sat down this month to wear a new shirt for our interview, fresh with creases from the packet.
He arrived wearing a baseball cap along with his face mask, to avoid being spotted, and pages of scrawled notes in preparation.
And rather than slink off into infamy, five years after he first said he would talk, we sat down and spoke for hours with the cameras rolling.
The interview might make you want to throw rocks at the TV. He might provoke you, in the way that winding his opponents up became his political trademark. His picture of what went on in Downing Street might alarm you too.
But his claims are very much his version of events.
They might help you understand more, for better or worse, what has really gone in in the last few years and what his extraordinary fallout with Mr Johnson was really about.
Whatever you think of Dominic Cummings, when big things happened, he was in the room.
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GB News says presenter Guto Harri breached standards by taking the knee - BBC News
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2021-07-16
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Guto Harri is not expected to appear for the rest of the summer after making the gesture on air.
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Entertainment & Arts
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Harri said: "I think we should all take the knee. In fact, why not take the knee now."
GB News host Guto Harri is not expected to appear for the rest of the summer after the channel said he breached its standards by taking the knee on air in support of England footballers.
Harri was discussing the racist abuse against black players after England's defeat in the Euro 2020 final.
But his actions sparked a backlash and boycott threat from some viewers.
GB News said: "We let both sides of the argument down by oversimplifying a very complex issue."
Harri, a former BBC correspondent who was an advisor to Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London, made the kneeling gesture on Tuesday, saying: "I've never understood why people find it offensive.
"Having seen over the last few days just how close to the surface, just how deep-rooted and hideously ugly racism in some English football fans is, I totally get it why the [football] squad thought we have to say, day in day out, that racism is not on.
"I may have underestimated how close to the surface the racism still was, so much so that I think we should all take the knee. In fact, why not take the knee now and just say it's an important gesture.
"It's not about me in the studio, but for them to do that as footballers on the field makes sense."
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He later tweeted that GB News was "above all about free speech" and that he didn't believe England footballers were "endorsing the narrow divisive aims of BLM [Black Lives Matter".
On Thursday, the channel responded with a tweet saying: "GB News stands four square against racism in all its forms. We do not have a company line on taking the knee.
"Some of our guests have been in favour, some against. All are anti-racist. We have editorial standards that all GB News journalists uphold."
But a follow-up post continued: "On Tuesday a contributing presenter took the knee live on air and this was an unacceptable breach of our standards."
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The channel launched last month, and there were reports on Friday that its director of programmes had stepped down.
GB News chairman and presenter Andrew Neil, who is currently on leave, later defended the channel's rocky start.
"Start ups are fraught and fractious," he tweeted. "@GBNEWS is no exception. But the news channel is finding its feet and has a great future. Watch this space."
The act of taking the knee has become a prominent but controversial symbol in sport and during anti-racist protests in recent years, and England players have been adopting the stance at the start of their matches.
Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka and Jadon Sancho were targeted after they missed penalties in the Euro 2020 final.
All three players received racist abuse on social media after the game and five people have been arrested, with Cheshire Police Chief Constable Mark Roberts calling the abuse was "utterly vile".
Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford were both abused after missing penalties
Harri, who GB News described as a "contributing presenter", was working alongside Mercy Muroki on the channel's mid-morning programme, Brazier & Muroki, which is usually co-presented by Colin Brazier.
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Sex Pistols in legal dispute over Danny Boyle's new TV series - BBC News
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2021-07-16
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Steve Jones and Paul Cook sue John Lydon over the use of the band's songs in Danny Boyle's Pistol.
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Entertainment & Arts
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Johnny Rotten (left) and Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols in 1978
A legal battle between three former members of the Sex Pistols has begun in the High Court in London.
Guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook are suing frontman John Lydon to allow the use of their songs in a new Danny Boyle-directed TV series, Pistol.
The show, which is being made by Disney, is based on Jones's memoir.
But Lydon - aka Johnny Rotten - has said he is not prepared to approve the necessary licences for the punk band's music unless ordered to by a court.
The Sex Pistols blazed a trail for UK punk in the 1970s, with a short but explosive career which included classic tracks like Anarchy in the UK, God Save the Queen and Pretty Vacant.
The six-part show, based on Jones's Lonely Boy: Tales From A Sex Pistol, has reignited longstanding feuds among the surviving members of the band.
On Thursday, Mark Cunningham QC, representing Lydon, said in written arguments that his client believes the book "depicts him in a hostile and unflattering light".
Edmund Cullen, the lawyer representing Jones and Cook, called the relationship between the former bandmates "bitter and fractious", noting how there had been failed attempts to resolve their differences.
Actors Louis Partridge and Emma Appleton, aka Sid and Nancy, seen on the set of Pistol in April
Mr Cullen said that under the terms of a band agreement made in 1998, decisions regarding licensing requests could be determined on a "majority rules basis".
He said Lydon was the only member of the band who was preventing the songs from being used by Oscar-winning director Boyle. Former bassist Glen Matlock and the estate of the late Sid Vicious support the licensing, he noted.
In a Sunday Times interview in April, Lydon said the script has been written and an actor selected to play him without his participation or consent, and that he had been put "in a corner like a rat".
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I will sweat blood to win voters' respect, says Sir Keir Starmer - BBC News
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2021-07-16
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The Labour leader tells the BBC his party has a "trust issue", after talking to some of its ex-voters.
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UK Politics
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sir Keir Starmer: "Trust has to be earned"
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to "sweat blood over months and years to earn respect" from voters.
Speaking to the BBC after taking questions from ex-Labour voters in Blackpool, Sir Keir admitted "there is a trust issue" for his party.
He also said he had been "utterly frustrated" the pandemic had stopped him meeting voters around the country.
Sir Keir took over from Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in April 2020, vowing to lead the party into "a new era".
After initially enjoying high approval ratings, Sir Keir has had a bruising 2021, with the loss of a traditional stronghold, Hartlepool, to the Conservatives in a by-election, and Boris Johnson's party opening up a large lead in the opinion polls.
He launched a policy review, and a reshuffle of his top team, after the Hartlepool defeat, and the party managed to hang on to Batley and Spen, in West Yorkshire, in another by-election.
But Sir Keir is under pressure from many of his own MPs to turn Labour's fortunes around and set out what he stands for.
He has embarked on a summer tour of Britain, to listen to voters' concerns and sell Labour's message.
At the first event, in Blackpool, which has two Conservative MPs, he was grilled about the benefits system, trust in politicians, employment and education, among other subjects.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sir Keir Starmer: "It makes me utterly frustrated that we have been acting in a pandemic"
But several panel members, former Labour voters selected by an independent polling company, said that they had never heard of him before the event.
He found this "utterly frustrating", he told BBC Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg, but added: "I never thought that this would be turned around in a year or 18 months.
"I never thought that in one evening, I'd persuade 12 people to change their vote.
"This is a slow, long, hard road. But every vote has to be earned."
The Labour leader outlined three policies to the audience - a jobs guarantee for workers under 25, a recovery fund for children's education after the pandemic, and a "buy British" plan for public spending.
The plans received a mixed reception, with some of the panel saying he was "wasting his time", but others welcoming the idea of more support for children who had lost out during the pandemic.
Asked about the reception from the ex-Labour voters, he said: "I'd much rather the sort of robust discussion I had tonight, than the warm bath of simply talking to people who already agree with me."
The audience also discussed anti-Semitism in Labour and former leader Mr Corbyn, who now sits as an independent MP after Sir Keir withdrew the whip from him.
"To turn this into an argument about Jeremy Corbyn is to do exactly what I want the Labour Party to stop doing." Sir Keir told Laura Kuenssberg after the event.
"We have been looking internally, we need to turn ourselves inside out, and be talking to and engaging with voters."
The Labour leader refused to say whether or not he would allow Mr Corbyn to sit as a Labour MP again saying only that there was a process being run by the party's chief whip.
Mr Corbyn was suspended both as a Labour MP and party member over his response to a human rights watchdog on anti-Semitism in Labour.
He has since been reinstated as a party member but has not yet been readmitted into the parliamentary Labour party.
Catherine said her family had been miners and that she was a dyed-in-the-wool Labour voter, but the leadership of Tony Blair had put her off the party.
She said "in her heart of hearts" she wanted to be Labour again but wasn't sure if she could believe Sir Keir.
Josephine said the Labour leader came across as "a nice guy" but said people hadn't "got a chance to get to know him", given the pandemic.
She added that she sometimes wondered if Blackpool had been "forgotten about" and asked Sir Keir how he would tackle child poverty in the area.
Frank said he stopped voting Labour following the Iraq war. He also brought up then-Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown calling a Labour voter a "bigot" after she expressed concerns about immigration.
He added that Sir Keir had been "outflanked on the charisma side" by Boris Johnson. "Boris Johnson gets away with murder," he added.
Zacky told the Labour leader that he needed to "get rid of all those bickering people" within the party and reach the voters "who have been with you before".
Natalie admitted she had had "no idea" who Sir Keir was. Asked what she thought of when someone said Labour, she said "debt".
Following the event, she said: "I felt listened to, which is an absolute delight".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Keir Starmer is quizzed by former Labour voters in Blackpool - including some who'd never heard of him before
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David Cameron lacked judgement over Greensill, MPs' report says - BBC News
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2021-07-20
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David Cameron showed a lack of judgement when he informally lobbied on behalf of Greensill Capital, MPs say.
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Business
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David Cameron showed a "significant lack of judgement" in the way he lobbied the government on behalf of Greensill Capital, a report has found.
The Treasury committee also questioned the former prime minister's judgement on the financial health of the now-collapsed lending firm.
The report comes after Mr Cameron was found to have lobbied for Greensill by sending texts to the chancellor.
Mr Cameron said he acted in good faith but there were "lessons to be learnt".
The Treasury committee said that while Mr Cameron did not break the rules over lobbying by former ministers, there was a "good case for strengthening them", with the current ones offering "insufficient strength".
The committee concluded Mr Cameron's "less formal means" to lobby the government to help Greensill, where he was an advisor, were "aided by his previous position of prime minister".
They added had he "taken a broader and more enquiring assessment of the business", there were "signals available" which might have led him to take a "more restrained approach" when asking the government to help the firm.
Mel Stride, chair of the Treasury committee, said the Treasury "should have encouraged" Mr Cameron into "more formal lines of communication as soon as it had identified his personal financial incentives".
He added: "However, the Treasury took the right decision to reject the objectives of his lobbying, and the committee found that Treasury ministers and officials behaved with complete and absolute integrity."
At the start of the coronavirus pandemic the government said it would back loans to large companies struggling in lockdown.
Greensill Capital, which has since collapsed, made seven loans totalling £350m to companies owned by Sanjeev Gupta's business empire, GFG Alliance, which included Liberty Steel, the UK's third-largest steel manufacturer which employs 3,000 people.
It was revealed in March, that when advising Greensill, the former prime minister texted Conservative ministers within the Treasury to appeal for access to emergency loans for the finance firm, but the requests were rejected.
Mr Cameron has been cleared of breaking any rules over his lobbying, however critics have continued to question his access to ministers.
The Treasury committee said the "central argument" for Greensill's attempt to gain access to government support was "more of a sales pitch than a reality".
The committee acknowledged Treasury officials and ministers behaved properly in their handling of Mr Cameron's lobbying, and "took the right decision" in preventing Greensill from accessing the Covid Corporate Financing Facility.
However, they added members were "very surprised" by the Treasury's claim that Mr Cameron's former position had no meaningful effect on how Greensill's application for access to the CCFF was dealt with.
"Mr Cameron was an ex-prime minister, who had worked with those he was lobbying and had access to their mobile phone numbers," the committee said.
"The committee believes that the Treasury's unwillingness to accept that it could have made any better choices in how it engaged in this case is a missed opportunity for reflection."
In response to the report, Mr Cameron said: "While I am pleased that the report confirms I broke no rules, I very much take on board its wider points.
"I always acted in good faith, and had no idea until the end of last year that Greensill Capital was in danger of failure.
"However, I have been clear all along that there are lessons to be learnt. As I said to the committee, I accept that communications of this nature should be done in future through only the most formal of channels.
"I agree that the guidance on how former ministers engage with government could be updated and was pleased to provide some suggestions on this to the committee."
A Treasury spokesman said: "This report is clear that the Treasury was right to consider Greensill's proposals, right to ultimately reject their proposals, and concludes that the Treasury behaved with absolute integrity throughout the process."
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner said Mr Cameron being cleared of breaking any rules "proves that the rules that are supposed to regulate lobbying are completely unfit for purpose".
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Agree with him or not, Dominic Cummings's words matter - BBC News
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2021-07-20
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Boris Johnson's former adviser sits down for his first interview - so what have we learned?
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UK Politics
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Everyone knows Dominic Cummings's name, and usually not for flattering reasons.
Having covered politics for nearly 20 years, it is at the heart of my job to get to know senior figures in all the political parties, and advisers in government and in opposition.
But I have never known a backroom figure who has caused such rage, or who has enjoyed stirring up his opponents quite as much.
It's no secret that he has fallen out with Boris Johnson in spectacular style. It's hard to think of a bust-up and betrayal that's been as vicious and sustained.
Mr Cummings has written thousands of words about what he sees as Mr Johnson's flaws already.
He gave seven hours of brutally unrelenting evidence to MPs about the many things that he believes went wrong during the government's handling of the pandemic.
The former aide is an important witness to recent history but has his own agenda, and has been accused of trying to rewrite that history to give himself a more flattering role.
Mr Cummings has never before though agreed to sit down and account for his own role in the pandemic, and also be questioned about his own efforts helping Mr Johnson in office, securing a Brexit deal and a huge election victory, or his time as boss of the Vote Leave campaign.
Dominic Cummings spent seven hours setting out his grievances during a recent session with MPs
Indeed, the first time that he promised he would do an interview, one day, was after the referendum in 2016, when we asked if he would answer questions about how he ran that campaign, how it behaved, and how it won.
In the five years that followed so much has happened that has changed the UK.
Cummings's detractors would say he is responsible for much of the political trauma. He became a household name because of the public outrage at his journey out of lockdown.
No-one was closer to the prime minister in government for more than a year.
Aside from Mr Johnson himself, perhaps no one else's decisions and judgements counted as much over a crucial period.
Arguably, no one other political campaigner's view of the world made such a difference to the country in recent times.
And certainly, no one other political adviser has inspired such venom, attracted such conspiracy theories, and launched thousands of memes.
There are many people in the Conservative Party who believe his credibility is shot because of how he has explicitly tried to attack Mr Johnson in recent months.
MPs have already expressed frustration that, in their view, he hasn't provided overwhelming evidence of the explosive claims he's already made.
Given his own reputation for provocation and playing with reality as a campaigner, it's not unreasonable to wonder if he can be believed now.
Dominic Cummings is not known as a formal dresser
His arguments at times can seem contradictory, even though it feels like he has clear scripts in his head that he wants to follow.
Mr Cummings styles himself as someone who only wants to do what he thinks is the right thing, whatever it takes, and doesn't care very much what anyone else thinks.
Despite his normal sartorial choices - crumpled shirts, beanie hats and tracksuit bottoms while in No 10 - he cared enough when we sat down this month to wear a new shirt for our interview, fresh with creases from the packet.
He arrived wearing a baseball cap along with his face mask, to avoid being spotted, and pages of scrawled notes in preparation.
And rather than slink off into infamy, five years after he first said he would talk, we sat down and spoke for hours with the cameras rolling.
The interview might make you want to throw rocks at the TV. He might provoke you, in the way that winding his opponents up became his political trademark. His picture of what went on in Downing Street might alarm you too.
But his claims are very much his version of events.
They might help you understand more, for better or worse, what has really gone in in the last few years and what his extraordinary fallout with Mr Johnson was really about.
Whatever you think of Dominic Cummings, when big things happened, he was in the room.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57894745
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Dominic Cummings: I discussed ousting PM after 2019 election landslide - BBC News
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2021-07-20
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Boris Johnson's former aide says Downing Street rifts developed within days of a landslide victory.
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UK Politics
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Dominic Cummings has revealed he discussed ousting Boris Johnson within days of the Conservatives winning the December 2019 election by a landslide.
The PM's former chief adviser told the BBC it seemed that, by mid-January 2020, Mr Johnson did not "have a plan".
Mr Cummings also alleged the PM's wife Carrie Johnson had tried to influence government appointments.
But, despite quitting Downing Street last autumn following a power struggle, he denied being motivated by revenge.
Asked about Mr Cummings's comments, a government spokesperson said ministers were fully focused on recovery from the pandemic and restoring the economy.
In his first major TV interview, Mr Cummings - who ran the Vote Leave campaign in the 2016 EU referendum campaign before working as the prime minister's adviser - told BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg that:
The Conservatives won the 2019 general election with a far better than expected 80-seat Commons majority, after a campaign involving Mr Cummings and other former Vote Leave staff in which they promised to "get Brexit done".
Mr Cummings claimed that Carrie Johnson - then Carrie Symonds - had been pleased to have Vote Leave veterans working in Downing Street until then.
But he added: "As soon as the election was won, her view was 'Why should it be Dominic and the Vote Leave team? Why shouldn't it be me that's pulling the strings?'"
Dominic Cummings: The Interview will be broadcast in the UK on BBC Two at 19:00 BST on Tuesday, and it will be available on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds
Mr Cummings said he and his allies began to fear for their positions by January 2020 and started discussing Mr Johnson's future.
"[People] were already saying, 'By the summer, either we'll all have gone from here or we'll be in the process of trying to get rid of [Mr Johnson] and get someone else in as prime minister'," he said.
Defending the discussions about removing the democratically elected Mr Johnson, Mr Cummings said: "He [the prime minister] doesn't have a plan, he doesn't know how to be prime minister and we only got him in there because we had to solve a certain problem not because he was the right person to be running the country."
Boris Johnson married Carrie Symonds, with whom he has one child, in May
He also said: "The situation we found ourselves in is that, within days... the prime minister's girlfriend is trying to get rid of us and appoint complete clowns to certain key jobs."
Bad feelings remained within Downing Street, Mr Cummings said, with his relationship with the prime minister effectively broken by July last year.
Four months later, on 14 November, he quit his government job.
His departure also came at a point when the prime minister was "fed up with the media portrayal of him being a kind of puppet for the Vote Leave team - it was driving him round the bend", Mr Cummings said.
A Downing Street spokesperson declined to comment in detail on Mr Cummings's allegations against Mrs Johnson, but said: "Political appointments are entirely made by the prime minister."
Despite running the successful Vote Leave campaign in the referendum, Mr Cummings said that "no-one on Earth" could be certain it had been the right decision to quit the EU.
"I think anyone who says they're sure about questions like that has a screw loose, whether you're on the Remain side or on our side," he said.
"One of the reasons why we won is... we didn't think we were all right and all Remainers were idiots or traitors or anything else."
The claim that the UK was giving the EU £350m a week caused huge controversy during the referendum campaign
But the Leave campaign has come in for criticism over its use during the campaign of a controversial claim that the UK was giving £350m a week to the EU.
Questioned over this, Mr Cummings said it had been a trap "to try and drive the Remain campaign and the people running it crazy, so they would start arguing about it".
UK voters decided by 51.9% to 48.1% to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum.
Asked whether the UK had become more divided and politics more brutal in the years since, and whether he had damaged to the country through his campaigning style, Mr Cummings replied: "Obviously I think Brexit was a good thing… I think that the way in which the world has worked out since 2016 vindicates the arguments that Vote Leave made in all sorts of ways.
"I think it's good that Brexit happened."
In recent months, Mr Cummings has written several blogs highly critical of Mr Johnson and attacked his competence and handling of the the pandemic when appearing before a parliamentary select committee.
But he denied that doing all this, and agreeing to be interviewed by the BBC, was part of a quest for revenge.
Mr Cummings admitted that people thought of him "generally as a nightmare", but said it "doesn't matter if people are upset" by attempts to reform government.
"A lot of people have a pop at me, but you don't see me crying about it," he said.
He also revealed that he had not spoken to the prime minister since quitting, having not answered a call from Mr Johnson shortly after he left Downing Street.
It did not "bother me one way or the other" whether they would speak again, he added.
Mr Cummings was repeatedly challenged throughout his BBC interview to back up his version of events.
He said many of his claims about the workings of government would be corroborated if there was a public inquiry into its handling of the Covid pandemic.
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Covid: CO2 monitors pledged to aid school ventilation - BBC News
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2021-08-21
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Schools in England are to be given CO2 monitors to as part of plans to limit the spread of Covid.
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Family & Education
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Around 300,000 carbon dioxide monitors are to be made available to schools in England next term to help improve ventilation and lessen Covid outbreaks.
The Department for Education said the portable monitors could be used to identify areas where more air-flow is needed.
Teaching unions have been calling for urgent extra ventilation measures.
They welcomed the pledge, but added any ventilation needs picked up by the monitors must be acted upon.
Most Covid safety restrictions have been relaxed in England's schools. Neither masks, bubble groups nor socially distancing rules are required this coming term.
Many schools have been opening windows and doors to keep air moving around classrooms to lessen the likelihood of Covid outbreaks, but this is easier in warmer weather.
Pupils will be offered twice weekly Covid testing and two tests at school when the autumn term starts to lessen the amount of infection coming into school.
However, those who have come into contact with a confirmed case will no longer have to isolate.
The removal of restrictions has left teachers and some parents concerned that the mass-mixing of pupils may lead to a spike in Covid cases.
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said: "Providing all schools with CO2 monitors will help them make sure they have the right balance of measures in place, minimising any potential disruption to education and allowing them to focus on world class lessons and catch up for the children who need it.
"By keeping up simple measures such as ventilation and testing, young people can now enjoy more freedom at school and college," he added.
The DfE says it is prioritising special schools and alternative provision for the delivery of CO2 monitors, as they are likely to have higher rates of vulnerable pupils.
But a statement on Friday made clear that this £25m batch of CO2 monitors has yet to be fully procured, less than two weeks before many schools return.
However, it said: "All schools and colleges are expected to receive at least partial allocations during the autumn term, enabling all settings to monitor areas where they believe airflow may be weakest."
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "In truth, this equipment should have been in place ready for the start of the autumn term, and arguably a lot earlier in the crisis, but it is a case of better late than never.
"Government guidance to schools and colleges on reducing the risk of coronavirus transmission highlights the importance of keeping spaces well ventilated, but doesn't go much further than recommending that windows should be opened to improve natural ventilation.
"This is challenging in the depths of a British winter and does not make for an environment which is conducive to learning. Our understanding is that carbon dioxide monitors will indicate when spaces need ventilating thereby reducing the need to keep windows open all the time."
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: "This is a really welcome first step in accepting our argument that funding is needed for good ventilation.
"It follows examples set by administrations in New York City, Scotland and Ireland.
"Sadly, Gavin Williamson failed to get on the front-foot over the summer but the initial investment of £25m in CO2 monitors is welcome now and will start to make a difference. It is vital, though, that government must also commit to supporting schools to address any ventilation problems identified by these monitors."
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Covid vaccine set to be offered to 16 and 17-year-olds - BBC News
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2021-08-03
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More than one million teenagers would be included in a new rollout if ministers accept expert advice.
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UK
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UK experts are set to recommend all 16 and 17-year-olds should be offered a Covid vaccine, the BBC has been told.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation stopped short of making the move last month, saying it was still assessing the benefits and risks.
About 1.4 million teenagers will be included in the new rollout but it is not known when the jabs will start.
They are only offered now to those over-12s who have underlying conditions or live with others at high risk.
But some countries, including the US, Canada and France, are routinely vaccinating people aged 12 years old and over.
Whitehall sources say ministers in England are expected to accept the advice of the JCVI, following an announcement on Wednesday.
It comes after Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said on Tuesday she was "hoping" to receive updated advice from the JCVI on the vaccination of 16 and 17-year-olds.
Ms Sturgeon said the UK's four chief medical officers had written to the JCVI, asking them to look again at vaccination advice for young people.
Universities Minister Michelle Donelan said an announcement was "imminent and... people will get clarity soon".
Meanwhile, new research suggested children who became ill with coronavirus mostly recovered within less than a week.
Across England, 223,755 under-18s have received a first vaccine dose, according to NHS data to 25 July.
It was previously announced that under-18s would be eligible if they had certain health conditions, lived with someone with a low immune system, or were approaching their 18th birthday.
But there was criticism after it emerged GPs were advised to hold off inviting clinically vulnerable 12 to 15-year-olds to take a vaccine due to uncertainty over insurance.
What are your questions about the vaccine for teenagers?
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Professor Jonathan Van-Tam answers a range of questions about Covid from young audience members
Decisions on vaccinations are based on recommendations from the independent JCVI. Ministers in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each then approve the plans.
The only Covid jab currently authorised in the UK for under-18s is the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Last month, the JCVI extended its recommendation on Covid jabs to children aged over 12 who are at higher risk of being ill and to those on the verge of turning 18.
However, it said it would not extend the rollout as it examined reports of rare adverse events such as inflammation of heart muscles among young adults.
Speaking ahead of the July decision, England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty said the JCVI was confident vaccines would protect children to a high degree.
He added more research was taking place as children did not tend to suffer severely from Covid, and the experts wanted to ensure the benefits of the jab outweighed any potential risks.
The decision to vaccinate children has always been more delicately balanced than for adults.
Children have less to gain from a Covid jab, not because it is less effective, but because they rarely become severely ill.
And while the risks of side effects such as inflamed heart tissue (which is often treated with rest and ibuprofen) are incredibly rare, they do exist.
Very high levels of vaccination in the most vulnerable also weakened arguments of immunising the young so they can't spread it to the old.
On top of that, the JCVI did not want to accidentally damage confidence in the usual childhood vaccines (from measles to meningitis to HPV) if a decision was seen as rushed or putting children at unnecessary risk.
It has been a decision that has been made slowly (too slowly for some) but now, after other countries have vaccinated hundreds of thousands of children, the evidence is there to press ahead.
Prof Paul Elliott, chair of epidemiology and public health at Imperial College London, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme vaccinating younger age groups could help drive down infections.
With the highest rates of infection seen in young people under 24, he said "anything we can do to reduce transmission in that group would be helpful".
But school leaders' union NAHT said the policy of vaccinating children should be led by clinicians and that schools should not play a part in promoting or enforcing vaccinations.
One local director of public health, Dr Anjan Ghosh, told BBC Radio 4's World at One it was likely parents and guardians would be asked for consent before some under-18s received a vaccine dose.
"Whether it is done in a school, or any other setting, the consent is about allowing the child to be vaccinated - so it doesn't depend on the setting where vaccines are happening from," he said.
Previous guidance said the over-16s would give their own consent for jabs, while for those under-16 parents or guardians would be involved in giving consent as well.
Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said ministers should "ensure plans are in place to roll out this vital next stage of vaccination while ensuring parents have all the facts and information they need".
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said it kept the vaccination of children and young people "under review and will be guided by the advice of the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation".
All over-18s have now been offered a vaccination against coronavirus. The latest government data shows 88.7% of adults in the UK have now had one dose of vaccine, while 73% have had two jabs.
And a further 21,691 cases of people testing positive for coronavirus were recorded in the UK on Tuesday. It was the fifth day in a row that infections have fallen, and the lowest daily total since late June.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58080232
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news_uk-58080232
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Sturgeon: Strange the PM will not meet me - BBC News
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2021-08-03
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Nicola Sturgeon says she does not feel snubbed but it is odd not to meet PM on his Scotland visit.
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UK Politics
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Nicola Sturgeon said it was "strange" the PM would not meet her during his two-day visit to Scotland.
The first minister said "I don't feel snubbed" but "most people will think it's a bit odd" that Mr Johnson declined an invitation.
Instead, he has met police officers and visited a renewable energy project.
Mr Johnson has suggested he have a meeting with first ministers at a later date.
Nicola Sturgeon had invited the PM to her official residence to discuss Covid recovery.
She said it was a "missed opportunity" that Mr Johnson did not meet her at Bute House, her official residence in Edinburgh.
In a letter to Ms Sturgeon seen by the BBC, Mr Johnson said he was "keen to arrange an in-person meeting" with her.
He said that, at a previous meeting between them, it was agreed they should set up a "structured forum for ongoing engagement" - and officials had made good progress on this.
"There is much for us to discuss as all parts of the UK work together on our shared priority of recovering from the pandemic," he said.
"The UK government is working closely with the devolved Scottish government on a variety of different issues."
And he added: "I look forward to meeting with you soon and working together in the interests of people in all parts of our country."
Ms Sturgeon tweeted on Monday that she had invited the PM to Bute House. She said the prime minister's trip would be the first chance for the pair to meet in person for a while.
The first minister said she believed people would find it "a bit odd and a bit strange" that Mr Johnson had chosen not to meet her.
Speaking to broadcasters, she said she did not feel "snubbed", but that it would have been the first opportunity to sit down and have a "face to face chat", describing the move as a "missed opportunity - but that's on him".
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who is also on a visit to Scotland, said he thought the prime minister should meet Ms Sturgeon.
He said the two should be working together on "the two most important things facing us" - the pandemic and the climate emergency.
He added: "We shouldn't have an argument about when they're going to meet or where - they need to work together on this."
They may not be meeting in person, but that doesn't mean Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon can't engage in some political games.
The first minister threw down a gauntlet very publicly when she posted her invitation to Mr Johnson on Twitter.
It was a win-win proposition for Ms Sturgeon, presenting the prime minister with the choice of looking like a visiting dignitary from a foreign power - or a scaredy cat swerving the jeering crowds which turned out for his last visit to Bute House.
Ultimately Mr Johnson has refused to take the bait, preferring to suggest a summit of leaders from around the UK - presumably where he can take the role of magnanimous host.
For all the talk of grown-up dialogue there is plainly no love lost between the pair, who will no doubt trade rhetoric via the media rather than face-to-face.
And with the constitutional question of Scottish independence still looming between them, the political power-plays are likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
The trip is Mr Johnson's first visit to Scotland since January - and his first since a pro-independence majority was returned at the Holyrood election in May.
There is no prospect of the pair seeing eye-to-eye on another referendum, but Ms Sturgeon had said she wanted to discuss how the governments could work together on "Covid recovery".
Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said the SNP leader had put out her invitation to the prime minister via Twitter, adding: "I'm not sure if he got it before everyone else got it on Twitter".
Mr Ross said: "His response was quite right. Nicola Sturgeon had agreed with the prime minister that governments across the UK would meet together. That is the right approach to take and that was the agreement made recently.
"There's constant dialogue between the Scottish and UK governments."
On the prime minister's last trip to Scotland in January, Ms Sturgeon questioned whether the trip was essential during lockdown restrictions.
Downing Street said it was important for the prime minister to be "visible and accessible" during the pandemic.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58079390
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news_uk-politics-58079390
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Afghanistan: What's the impact of Taliban's return on international order? - BBC News
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2021-08-17
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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What is the diplomatic fallout and how allies and rivals are looking at the US following the Taliban takeover?
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US & Canada
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The Biden administration's rush for the exit in Afghanistan has been accompanied by a similar rush to judgement among pundits and commentators who, by and large, have castigated the US president for a decision that many see as unnecessary and a betrayal, both of those who served in Afghanistan and of the Afghan people themselves.
The heartbreaking images from the airport in Kabul only reinforce this message. And there is justifiably a good deal of emotion to go round. The West has invested a lot of blood, time and money in Afghanistan. The Afghan people, much, much, more.
It is hard to argue with the criticism of the Biden administration's precipitate departure. Afghanistan may indeed be un-salvageable, its governing structures too unrepresentative and corrupt. This though only underscores the argument that Afghanistan was not "lost" in the past two years but during the previous 20.
Nonetheless the decision to cut and run is being seen as a terrible blow to US credibility - to its reliability as a partner, and indeed to its moral standing in world affairs. How does this square with Mr Biden's clarion cry on taking office, that America was back?
Comparisons are being made with Vietnam - the similarities with helicopters shuttling US nationals away from a falling city being too much for the newspaper front-pages to resist. But in reality - despite the superficial similarities -there are some important differences, too.
South Vietnam collapsed some two years after US troops left. Indeed it looks as though the Americans expected their Afghan allies to soldier on for a significant period without them. The US was humbled by Vietnam - its population deeply divided and its military morale damaged. But while Vietnam turned out to be a tragic side-show in the Cold War, the US still ultimately won that contest. Nato was not weakened. US allies around the globe did not shy away from expecting US support. The US remained the pre-eminent superpower.
Afghanistan is altogether different. Internal divisions in the US over this conflict have in no way been comparable to Vietnam's. The Afghanistan mission was certainly unpopular at home but there were no mass rallies against it.
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Crucially though, today's international context is dramatically different from that of the 1970s. The US - indeed the West in general - is engaged in multiple contests, in few of which they are outright winners. The Afghan collapse is potentially a disaster in the so-called war on terror. But in the wider conflict between democracy and authoritarianism, Washington's failure can only be seen as a serious set-back.
There will be smiles in Moscow and Beijing, at least for now. The Western model of liberal interventionism - promoted as a means of spreading democracy and the rule of law - has perhaps been tested to destruction in Afghanistan. One cannot see much enthusiasm for similar undertakings in the future.
Those of Washington's allies who joined in the Afghanistan project are smarting. They feel badly let down. Even British ministers, jealous of their oft touted "special relationship" with Washington, have been openly critical of President Biden's decision.
And for America's European allies in general, it underscores how dependent they are upon the US and how little their views count once the White House decides to go in one particular direction.
So bad news for the West. But how long-lasting will be the smiles in Beijing, Moscow and even Islamabad? It was Pakistan that nurtured and gave safe haven to the Taliban for its own geo-strategic purposes. But if renewed Taliban rule produces a simple turning back of the clock - if international terrorism finds a renewed haven - then Pakistan may find that the growing turbulence in the region has decidedly negative consequences.
China is happy to see the US failure. Indeed, if Mr Biden's reason to pull out from Afghanistan was due to his desire to re-focus US national power to rival a rising China, then this step has simply given China an opportunity to expand its own influence in Afghanistan and beyond.
China, though, must have concern, too. Its shares a short border with Afghanistan. It is actively persecuting its own Muslim minority and must be concerned at the possibility that anti-Beijing Islamist terrorists might seek to use Afghanistan as a base. No wonder then that Chinese diplomacy over recent weeks has been so eager to court the Taliban.
Russia, too, must have worries about the return of instability and terrorism. Maybe it feels a little better about itself now that the US has similarly been humbled by Afghan tribal fighters, just as the Soviet Union was in the late-1980s.
But its chief interest is the security of a large part of Central Asia, many of whose states are allies of Moscow. This summer Russia moved tanks to the Tajikistan-Afghan frontier for exercises intended to demonstrate its determination to prevent any spill-over from an Afghan collapse.
So in the short-term, the Afghan debacle certainly benefits the West's opponents. But their attitudes were not going to change anyway.
What really matters are the ramifications among Washington's allies. What will they take away from the Afghan experience? Beyond the immediate crisis, will the NATO countries, Israel, Taiwan, South Korea or Japan see the US as a less reliable partner? If they do, then Mr Biden's decision to quit Afghanistan will prove fateful, indeed.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58248864
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news_world-us-canada-58248864
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Afghanistan pullout: Biden's biggest call yet - will it be his most calamitous? - BBC News
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2021-08-17
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Joe Biden won't be seeing the "war is over" headlines he hoped for when he decided to withdraw.
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US & Canada
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If you like neat lines, tidiness and admire symmetry, what's not to like about the decision of Joe Biden to pull American combat troops out of Afghanistan by 11 September 2021 - exactly 20 years on from 9/11?
In modern day America it often feels that all roads lead back to 9/11; the single most defining - and scarring - event since Pearl Harbor: the surprise attack by the Japanese on America's Pacific fleet, which would ultimately bring America into World War Two.
And so it was that 9/11 led to this country's longest military encounter. The attack on the Twin Towers, the plane that flew into the Pentagon, and the one that crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, were initially the spur for a surge of US nationalism. Young people - in fact people of all ages - were going along to armed forces recruitment offices wanting to sign up. America had come under attack; these patriots wanted to fight to defend the country the "land of the free", and seek revenge on those who would do the US harm.
And don't mistake this for some kind of kneejerk jingoism. It wasn't that. I knew many people - not just Americans - who were of a liberal bent and had been no great fans of all the doings of the US of A but who have a visceral sense this was a moment where you had to pick your team.
Were you on the side of the rule of law, free and fair elections, due process, sexual equality, universal education? Or were you on the side of those who would fly planes into buildings, or would stone people to death, or throw homosexuals off of buildings, or deny girls schooling? If that seems a massive over-simplification, maybe it is - but in the devastating aftermath of 9/11, that is how it seemed to many.
Biden makes a surprise visit to Afghanistan as vice-president in 2011
But by 2016 it was one of the factors that led to Donald Trump's election: the weariness of the "endless wars" as candidate Trump would refer to the quagmires of Afghanistan and Iraq; the wariness of America being able to act as the world's policeman.
Americans understandably wanted to pull up the drawbridge, bring the troops home, leave it to the people in those countries to sort out their own problems, and finally give up on the idea that a US model of liberal democracy was an exportable commodity that could be imposed. The liberal interventionist crusade was over.
Trump, if he had won last November, would have pulled out US troops, probably quicker. Although Joe Biden inherited Trump's promise to withdraw, in policy terms the easiest thing would have been to continue to sign the cheques to pay for American servicemen and women to stay in Afghanistan for another year. And then another. And another after that.
The political pressure was by no means overwhelming. If anything, the reverse. The defence top brass, the foreign policy establishment, America's allies abroad thought anything other than the status quo would be reckless. But one question was gnawing at the new president, and it was the one posed by Hillel the Elder back in biblical times: "If not now, then when?"
Biden - who advised President Barack Obama not to send more troops in 2009 but lost the argument - went with now, in what could be the most consequential single decision of his presidency.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Taliban leaders speak to BBC News about conquer and compromise
When 9/11 happened I was the BBC's Paris correspondent, reporting on Eurotunnel's attempt to force the closure of a Red Cross refugee centre called Sangatte - where many of the world's storm-tossed refugees and migrants congregated before making the final leg of the journey to the UK.
I was driving to Calais when I got a call from a colleague telling me to stop at the nearest service station to watch TV, and see what was unfolding.
We didn't know what would happen next - or where we would end up. One year into the optimism of a new millennium, there was a narrative and it wasn't a happy one - the war on terror, a clash of civilisations, call it what you will. At the time the two stories could not have been more different, but a lot of the bedraggled people we met on the roads around Calais were from Afghanistan fleeing Taliban rule.
It's worth remembering why the US, UK and others went into Afghanistan. The Taliban had - in effect - become a finishing school for Islamist terrorists wanting to wage jihad against the west. Al-Qaeda wannabes were going into the country to train for holy war. The 9/11 terrorists had honed their skills and hatched their plot there. Removing the Taliban and tackling al-Qaeda became critical for global security.
Within a few weeks of 9/11, I was in northern Afghanistan, travelling via Delhi and then Dushanbe in Tajikistan to get there. We were moving with the US and UK-backed Northern Alliance troops as they pushed the Taliban out.
Ousting the Taliban was considered a global priority 20 years ago, writes the author (right)
Our first day was spent travelling from Khoja Bahauddin, then the Northern Alliance HQ along a road where the Taliban had killed a number of journalists in an ambush two days earlier. After one night we ended up in a town called Taleqan. It had fallen the night before we arrived. One of the iconic shots was of a girls-school classroom that had become a weapons dump for Taliban rockets that in their hasty retreat they had left behind.
The stubborn last stronghold was Kunduz - a vital communication corridor sitting between Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif and then further north to the border with Uzbekistan.
Now both Taleqan and Kunduz have come back under Taliban control, with a third of the country's regional capitals now under their control.
And that raises a super-uncomfortable question for Joe Biden and his "if not now, then when" policy.
Twenty years on and so many lives lost, and so many billions of dollars spent, what was it for? What's been achieved? What do you say to the families of all those servicemen killed by the Taliban now that the US is giving up? What's to stop terror groups from re-establishing their jihad training camps? At the UN Security Council hearing last Friday it was reported that up to 20 different terror groups, involving thousands of foreign fighters were already fighting with Taliban forces.
The regions where Jon travelled are now back under Taliban control
I'm sure as I am writing this more families will be packing up their possessions fearful of what Taliban control will mean, perhaps heading to Calais and then the UK. Will the girls' schools return to become weapons storage facilities again?
The scars of 9/11 are clear everywhere - thousands of servicemen have come back with prosthetic limbs and disturbed minds. Suicide rates have been rising. Families have lost loved ones. On America's streets are men with red plastic beer cups begging for loose change, many of them with signs saying they are veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.
US-led forces toppled the Taliban: In 2001 US-led forces overthrew Afghanistan's Taliban rulers after the 9/11 attacks masterminded by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was based there.
Twenty years of occupation and military operations followed: The US and allies oversaw elections and built up Afghan security forces, but the Taliban continued to launch attacks.
Eventually the US made a deal with the Taliban: They would pull out if the militants agreed not to host terrorist groups. But talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government failed. US-led forces withdrew this year and the Taliban have now retaken most of the country.
The desire to stay at home and shut yourself away from a troubling world is completely understandable. There is no surprise that "America First" as a slogan had such resonance. George W Bush was not advocating that back in 2001 - but there were no US troops in Afghanistan or Iraq then. And that didn't keep America safe when early that morning, across those gin-clear blue skies passenger aeroplanes were hijacked and became al-Qaeda-guided missiles, flying into their targets killing thousands of people doing nothing more provocative than going about their daily lives.
There's also a difference between enforcing your will as the world's policeman, and being a peacekeeper. Thousands of American troops are still stationed in South Korea - even though the Korean war was 70 years ago. The calculation of successive US presidents has been that a tense peace is better than a hot war or a destabilised region.
Joe Biden was hoping his decision would result in headlines like "Afghan War Ends" or "America's longest war is over". But 20 years on, and the Taliban now re-establishing control with all that could flow from that, might historians in future judge that the 20th anniversary marked the start of the second Afghan war?
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58195336
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news_world-us-canada-58195336
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Covid: CO2 monitors pledged to aid school ventilation - BBC News
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2021-08-22
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Schools in England are to be given CO2 monitors to as part of plans to limit the spread of Covid.
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Family & Education
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Around 300,000 carbon dioxide monitors are to be made available to schools in England next term to help improve ventilation and lessen Covid outbreaks.
The Department for Education said the portable monitors could be used to identify areas where more air-flow is needed.
Teaching unions have been calling for urgent extra ventilation measures.
They welcomed the pledge, but added any ventilation needs picked up by the monitors must be acted upon.
Most Covid safety restrictions have been relaxed in England's schools. Neither masks, bubble groups nor socially distancing rules are required this coming term.
Many schools have been opening windows and doors to keep air moving around classrooms to lessen the likelihood of Covid outbreaks, but this is easier in warmer weather.
Pupils will be offered twice weekly Covid testing and two tests at school when the autumn term starts to lessen the amount of infection coming into school.
However, those who have come into contact with a confirmed case will no longer have to isolate.
The removal of restrictions has left teachers and some parents concerned that the mass-mixing of pupils may lead to a spike in Covid cases.
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said: "Providing all schools with CO2 monitors will help them make sure they have the right balance of measures in place, minimising any potential disruption to education and allowing them to focus on world class lessons and catch up for the children who need it.
"By keeping up simple measures such as ventilation and testing, young people can now enjoy more freedom at school and college," he added.
The DfE says it is prioritising special schools and alternative provision for the delivery of CO2 monitors, as they are likely to have higher rates of vulnerable pupils.
But a statement on Friday made clear that this £25m batch of CO2 monitors has yet to be fully procured, less than two weeks before many schools return.
However, it said: "All schools and colleges are expected to receive at least partial allocations during the autumn term, enabling all settings to monitor areas where they believe airflow may be weakest."
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "In truth, this equipment should have been in place ready for the start of the autumn term, and arguably a lot earlier in the crisis, but it is a case of better late than never.
"Government guidance to schools and colleges on reducing the risk of coronavirus transmission highlights the importance of keeping spaces well ventilated, but doesn't go much further than recommending that windows should be opened to improve natural ventilation.
"This is challenging in the depths of a British winter and does not make for an environment which is conducive to learning. Our understanding is that carbon dioxide monitors will indicate when spaces need ventilating thereby reducing the need to keep windows open all the time."
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: "This is a really welcome first step in accepting our argument that funding is needed for good ventilation.
"It follows examples set by administrations in New York City, Scotland and Ireland.
"Sadly, Gavin Williamson failed to get on the front-foot over the summer but the initial investment of £25m in CO2 monitors is welcome now and will start to make a difference. It is vital, though, that government must also commit to supporting schools to address any ventilation problems identified by these monitors."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-58285359
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news_education-58285359
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Afghanistan pullout: Biden's biggest call yet - will it be his most calamitous? - BBC News
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2021-08-14
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Joe Biden won't be seeing the "war is over" headlines he hoped for when he decided to withdraw.
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US & Canada
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If you like neat lines, tidiness and admire symmetry, what's not to like about the decision of Joe Biden to pull American combat troops out of Afghanistan by 11 September 2021 - exactly 20 years on from 9/11?
In modern day America it often feels that all roads lead back to 9/11; the single most defining - and scarring - event since Pearl Harbor: the surprise attack by the Japanese on America's Pacific fleet, which would ultimately bring America into World War Two.
And so it was that 9/11 led to this country's longest military encounter. The attack on the Twin Towers, the plane that flew into the Pentagon, and the one that crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, were initially the spur for a surge of US nationalism. Young people - in fact people of all ages - were going along to armed forces recruitment offices wanting to sign up. America had come under attack; these patriots wanted to fight to defend the country the "land of the free", and seek revenge on those who would do the US harm.
And don't mistake this for some kind of kneejerk jingoism. It wasn't that. I knew many people - not just Americans - who were of a liberal bent and had been no great fans of all the doings of the US of A but who have a visceral sense this was a moment where you had to pick your team.
Were you on the side of the rule of law, free and fair elections, due process, sexual equality, universal education? Or were you on the side of those who would fly planes into buildings, or would stone people to death, or throw homosexuals off of buildings, or deny girls schooling? If that seems a massive over-simplification, maybe it is - but in the devastating aftermath of 9/11, that is how it seemed to many.
Biden makes a surprise visit to Afghanistan as vice-president in 2011
But by 2016 it was one of the factors that led to Donald Trump's election: the weariness of the "endless wars" as candidate Trump would refer to the quagmires of Afghanistan and Iraq; the wariness of America being able to act as the world's policeman.
Americans understandably wanted to pull up the drawbridge, bring the troops home, leave it to the people in those countries to sort out their own problems, and finally give up on the idea that a US model of liberal democracy was an exportable commodity that could be imposed. The liberal interventionist crusade was over.
Trump, if he had won last November, would have pulled out US troops, probably quicker. Although Joe Biden inherited Trump's promise to withdraw, in policy terms the easiest thing would have been to continue to sign the cheques to pay for American servicemen and women to stay in Afghanistan for another year. And then another. And another after that.
The political pressure was by no means overwhelming. If anything, the reverse. The defence top brass, the foreign policy establishment, America's allies abroad thought anything other than the status quo would be reckless. But one question was gnawing at the new president, and it was the one posed by Hillel the Elder back in biblical times: "If not now, then when?"
Biden - who advised President Barack Obama not to send more troops in 2009 but lost the argument - went with now, in what could be the most consequential single decision of his presidency.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Taliban leaders speak to BBC News about conquer and compromise
When 9/11 happened I was the BBC's Paris correspondent, reporting on Eurotunnel's attempt to force the closure of a Red Cross refugee centre called Sangatte - where many of the world's storm-tossed refugees and migrants congregated before making the final leg of the journey to the UK.
I was driving to Calais when I got a call from a colleague telling me to stop at the nearest service station to watch TV, and see what was unfolding.
We didn't know what would happen next - or where we would end up. One year into the optimism of a new millennium, there was a narrative and it wasn't a happy one - the war on terror, a clash of civilisations, call it what you will. At the time the two stories could not have been more different, but a lot of the bedraggled people we met on the roads around Calais were from Afghanistan fleeing Taliban rule.
It's worth remembering why the US, UK and others went into Afghanistan. The Taliban had - in effect - become a finishing school for Islamist terrorists wanting to wage jihad against the west. Al-Qaeda wannabes were going into the country to train for holy war. The 9/11 terrorists had honed their skills and hatched their plot there. Removing the Taliban and tackling al-Qaeda became critical for global security.
Within a few weeks of 9/11, I was in northern Afghanistan, travelling via Delhi and then Dushanbe in Tajikistan to get there. We were moving with the US and UK-backed Northern Alliance troops as they pushed the Taliban out.
Ousting the Taliban was considered a global priority 20 years ago, writes the author (right)
Our first day was spent travelling from Khoja Bahauddin, then the Northern Alliance HQ along a road where the Taliban had killed a number of journalists in an ambush two days earlier. After one night we ended up in a town called Taleqan. It had fallen the night before we arrived. One of the iconic shots was of a girls-school classroom that had become a weapons dump for Taliban rockets that in their hasty retreat they had left behind.
The stubborn last stronghold was Kunduz - a vital communication corridor sitting between Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif and then further north to the border with Uzbekistan.
Now both Taleqan and Kunduz have come back under Taliban control, with a third of the country's regional capitals now under their control.
And that raises a super-uncomfortable question for Joe Biden and his "if not now, then when" policy.
Twenty years on and so many lives lost, and so many billions of dollars spent, what was it for? What's been achieved? What do you say to the families of all those servicemen killed by the Taliban now that the US is giving up? What's to stop terror groups from re-establishing their jihad training camps? At the UN Security Council hearing last Friday it was reported that up to 20 different terror groups, involving thousands of foreign fighters were already fighting with Taliban forces.
The regions where Jon travelled are now back under Taliban control
I'm sure as I am writing this more families will be packing up their possessions fearful of what Taliban control will mean, perhaps heading to Calais and then the UK. Will the girls' schools return to become weapons storage facilities again?
The scars of 9/11 are clear everywhere - thousands of servicemen have come back with prosthetic limbs and disturbed minds. Suicide rates have been rising. Families have lost loved ones. On America's streets are men with red plastic beer cups begging for loose change, many of them with signs saying they are veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.
US-led forces toppled the Taliban: In 2001 US-led forces overthrew Afghanistan's Taliban rulers after the 9/11 attacks masterminded by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was based there.
Twenty years of occupation and military operations followed: The US and allies oversaw elections and built up Afghan security forces, but the Taliban continued to launch attacks.
Eventually the US made a deal with the Taliban: They would pull out if the militants agreed not to host terrorist groups. But talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government failed. US-led forces withdrew this year and the Taliban have now retaken most of the country.
The desire to stay at home and shut yourself away from a troubling world is completely understandable. There is no surprise that "America First" as a slogan had such resonance. George W Bush was not advocating that back in 2001 - but there were no US troops in Afghanistan or Iraq then. And that didn't keep America safe when early that morning, across those gin-clear blue skies passenger aeroplanes were hijacked and became al-Qaeda-guided missiles, flying into their targets killing thousands of people doing nothing more provocative than going about their daily lives.
There's also a difference between enforcing your will as the world's policeman, and being a peacekeeper. Thousands of American troops are still stationed in South Korea - even though the Korean war was 70 years ago. The calculation of successive US presidents has been that a tense peace is better than a hot war or a destabilised region.
Joe Biden was hoping his decision would result in headlines like "Afghan War Ends" or "America's longest war is over". But 20 years on, and the Taliban now re-establishing control with all that could flow from that, might historians in future judge that the 20th anniversary marked the start of the second Afghan war?
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Wagatha Christie: Jamie Vardy's phone may be analysed in libel case - BBC News
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2021-08-04
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The device could now be inspected as part of Rebekah Vardy's and Coleen Rooney's libel battle.
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Newsbeat
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Footballer Jamie Vardy's phone can be inspected as part of a libel battle between his wife and Coleen Rooney, a judge has ruled.
Rebekah Vardy is suing Rooney for libel after Rooney claimed fake stories had been leaked to newspapers by Vardy's Instagram account.
The wife of ex-England player Wayne Rooney was dubbed "Wagatha Christie" during the row, which began in 2019.
A full trial will likely take place next year, the judge indicated.
At a hearing on Wednesday, the High Court heard both women will be using experts to analyse the Instagram data on relevant devices ahead of the trial.
Judge Roger Eastman said devices that had used Rebekah Vardy's account - which could include her husband's phone or computer - should be "up for grabs for inspection and analysis by the experts".
The court previously heard that other people had accessed Mrs Vardy's Instagram account, including her assistant Caroline Watt and Jamie Vardy's social media manager.
Rebekah Vardy's legal team say they're making third-party Instagram data available for the court and denied any secrecy.
Coleen Rooney (right) accused Rebekah Vardy of leaking stories to the press about her private life in 2019
The judge said Instagram experts would be brought in to "explore what has gone on".
He added: "In order for the expert to explore what has gone on... they need to have access to more than just the personal devices of Mrs Vardy and Mrs Rooney.
"The outreach and depth with which Instagram matters circulate, and can be circulated, is rather wider than that."
"In light of the fact Mrs Vardy has given access (to her Instagram) to Ms Watt and her husband, it seems to me at least they and their devices are, for the purposes of disclosure, within her possession and control."
Social media was set alight on 9 October 2019 when Coleen Rooney pressed send on her Instagram and Twitter posts, accusing Rebekah Vardy of leaking details about her life to the tabloids.
In an effort to work out which of her friends had been sharing stories, she'd published different fake stories on Instagram to different people, and monitored which ones ended up as newspaper stories.
Rebekah Vardy took to social media to deny any involvement in the leaking.
As the argument raged on, Vardy's lawyers said her husband faced abuse on the pitch which meant they couldn't let their young children attend games anymore.
Vardy decided to sue for defamation last year in July, with court documents written by her lawyers saying the incident had affected her mental and physical health.
When Rooney's social media posts were released, Vardy was seven months pregnant and her lawyers claim they led to her being taken to hospital three times with anxiety attacks.
The pair originally became friends through their husbands, former Manchester United and England player Wayne Rooney and Leicester striker Jamie Vardy.
Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.
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Meng Wanzhou: Final arguments in extradition battle - BBC News
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2021-08-04
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Huawei's chief financial officer is due in court as a Canadian judge weighs her extradition to the US.
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Technology
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A lengthy legal battle over the extradition of Huawei's chief financial officer reaches a crucial stage in Canada on Wednesday.
Meng Wanzhou, who is also the daughter of the founder of the Chinese telecoms company, was arrested at Vancouver airport in December 2018.
She will appear in court as a judge begins hearing the final arguments over whether to send her to the US.
Her case was also raised in high-level discussions between senior US and Chinese diplomats in recent weeks.
The court hearings, which are expected to last up to three weeks, mark the culmination of two-and-a-half years of legal battles.
The US alleges Ms Meng misled the bank HSBC over the true nature of Huawei's relationship with a company called Skycom and this, in turn, put the bank at risk of violating sanctions against Iran.
Until now, lawyers have been arguing over what evidence can be presented in this extradition hearing and what arguments can be introduced to challenge the US request.
Ms Meng's lawyers have been challenging the extradition on a number of grounds.
One is that the US misled the Canadian court over the evidence.
Huawei lawyers have fought to include material that they say shows Ms Meng did not mislead HSBC about the business relationship with Skycom, including the full details a Powerpoint presentation used during a 2013 meeting as well as internal Huawei emails.
Her lawyers also sued HSBC first in London and then in Hong Kong to gain access to its internal material to support their position. However, the Canadian judge declined to allow this to be used.
Ms Meng's lawyers argue the case is fundamentally a political prosecution with the Huawei executive a pawn in the battle between the US and China. They argue that it was further politicised by former President Donald Trump who at one point seemed to offer her release in return for a better trade deal with China.
They are claiming her rights were violated when she was questioned at Vancouver airport without a lawyer and will say the case, about conversations in Hong Kong, does not relate to activity over which the US has jurisdiction. Finally, they will argue that even if the evidence was true, it would not justify a charge of fraud against her.
A judgement is expected later in the year. If Ms Meng loses, the extradition request goes to Canadian government ministers for their decision. Her lawyers can then launch an appeal. This means the case could potentially drag on for another five years or more.
But in parallel with the legal process, diplomatic contacts and back-channel discussions are understood to be ongoing over the case, involving US and Chinese officials as well as Huawei, a sign of how much is at stake with this case.
The arrest of such a senior business executive from a prominent company led to anger in China and become one of a number of stumbling blocks in relations with the US.
The Trump administration took a hard line on Huawei, imposing sanctions on the company, but so far the Biden approach has yet to shift significantly. The arrest also led to a serious diplomatic crisis with Canada amid allegations that two Canadians have been arrested in China on national security charges as a bargaining chip over Ms Meng's detention.
The issue was discussed in July when US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman met Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Xie Feng.
Halting the extradition, along with the lifting of sanctions and visa restrictions against Chinese officials was raised by the Chinese side with US officials raising the two Canadians held in China.
Despite both sides making demands, the meeting was said to be an improvement on a difficult first meeting between the Biden team and Chinese officials in Alaska a few months earlier.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ren Zhengfei described the arrest of his daughter Meng Wanzhou as politically motivated
Executives from Huawei have also been in touch with the US government to try to secure Ms Meng's release.
Dropping the extradition request may require some kind of admission of wrongdoing from Ms Meng and some kind of tacit agreement over the fate of the Canadians, both of which may not be straightforward.
But a deal may also be a signal that both Washington and Beijing are looking for ways to improve their fractious relationship and lower the temperature.
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Covid vaccine set to be offered to 16 and 17-year-olds - BBC News
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2021-08-04
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More than one million teenagers would be included in a new rollout if ministers accept expert advice.
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UK
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UK experts are set to recommend all 16 and 17-year-olds should be offered a Covid vaccine, the BBC has been told.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation stopped short of making the move last month, saying it was still assessing the benefits and risks.
About 1.4 million teenagers will be included in the new rollout but it is not known when the jabs will start.
They are only offered now to those over-12s who have underlying conditions or live with others at high risk.
But some countries, including the US, Canada and France, are routinely vaccinating people aged 12 years old and over.
Whitehall sources say ministers in England are expected to accept the advice of the JCVI, following an announcement on Wednesday.
It comes after Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said on Tuesday she was "hoping" to receive updated advice from the JCVI on the vaccination of 16 and 17-year-olds.
Ms Sturgeon said the UK's four chief medical officers had written to the JCVI, asking them to look again at vaccination advice for young people.
Universities Minister Michelle Donelan said an announcement was "imminent and... people will get clarity soon".
Meanwhile, new research suggested children who became ill with coronavirus mostly recovered within less than a week.
Across England, 223,755 under-18s have received a first vaccine dose, according to NHS data to 25 July.
It was previously announced that under-18s would be eligible if they had certain health conditions, lived with someone with a low immune system, or were approaching their 18th birthday.
But there was criticism after it emerged GPs were advised to hold off inviting clinically vulnerable 12 to 15-year-olds to take a vaccine due to uncertainty over insurance.
What are your questions about the vaccine for teenagers?
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Professor Jonathan Van-Tam answers a range of questions about Covid from young audience members
Decisions on vaccinations are based on recommendations from the independent JCVI. Ministers in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each then approve the plans.
The only Covid jab currently authorised in the UK for under-18s is the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Last month, the JCVI extended its recommendation on Covid jabs to children aged over 12 who are at higher risk of being ill and to those on the verge of turning 18.
However, it said it would not extend the rollout as it examined reports of rare adverse events such as inflammation of heart muscles among young adults.
Speaking ahead of the July decision, England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty said the JCVI was confident vaccines would protect children to a high degree.
He added more research was taking place as children did not tend to suffer severely from Covid, and the experts wanted to ensure the benefits of the jab outweighed any potential risks.
The decision to vaccinate children has always been more delicately balanced than for adults.
Children have less to gain from a Covid jab, not because it is less effective, but because they rarely become severely ill.
And while the risks of side effects such as inflamed heart tissue (which is often treated with rest and ibuprofen) are incredibly rare, they do exist.
Very high levels of vaccination in the most vulnerable also weakened arguments of immunising the young so they can't spread it to the old.
On top of that, the JCVI did not want to accidentally damage confidence in the usual childhood vaccines (from measles to meningitis to HPV) if a decision was seen as rushed or putting children at unnecessary risk.
It has been a decision that has been made slowly (too slowly for some) but now, after other countries have vaccinated hundreds of thousands of children, the evidence is there to press ahead.
Prof Paul Elliott, chair of epidemiology and public health at Imperial College London, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme vaccinating younger age groups could help drive down infections.
With the highest rates of infection seen in young people under 24, he said "anything we can do to reduce transmission in that group would be helpful".
But school leaders' union NAHT said the policy of vaccinating children should be led by clinicians and that schools should not play a part in promoting or enforcing vaccinations.
One local director of public health, Dr Anjan Ghosh, told BBC Radio 4's World at One it was likely parents and guardians would be asked for consent before some under-18s received a vaccine dose.
"Whether it is done in a school, or any other setting, the consent is about allowing the child to be vaccinated - so it doesn't depend on the setting where vaccines are happening from," he said.
Previous guidance said the over-16s would give their own consent for jabs, while for those under-16 parents or guardians would be involved in giving consent as well.
Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said ministers should "ensure plans are in place to roll out this vital next stage of vaccination while ensuring parents have all the facts and information they need".
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said it kept the vaccination of children and young people "under review and will be guided by the advice of the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation".
All over-18s have now been offered a vaccination against coronavirus. The latest government data shows 88.7% of adults in the UK have now had one dose of vaccine, while 73% have had two jabs.
And a further 21,691 cases of people testing positive for coronavirus were recorded in the UK on Tuesday. It was the fifth day in a row that infections have fallen, and the lowest daily total since late June.
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Sturgeon: Strange the PM will not meet me - BBC News
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2021-08-04
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Nicola Sturgeon says she does not feel snubbed but it is odd not to meet PM on his Scotland visit.
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UK Politics
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Nicola Sturgeon said it was "strange" the PM would not meet her during his two-day visit to Scotland.
The first minister said "I don't feel snubbed" but "most people will think it's a bit odd" that Mr Johnson declined an invitation.
Instead, he has met police officers and visited a renewable energy project.
Mr Johnson has suggested he have a meeting with first ministers at a later date.
Nicola Sturgeon had invited the PM to her official residence to discuss Covid recovery.
She said it was a "missed opportunity" that Mr Johnson did not meet her at Bute House, her official residence in Edinburgh.
In a letter to Ms Sturgeon seen by the BBC, Mr Johnson said he was "keen to arrange an in-person meeting" with her.
He said that, at a previous meeting between them, it was agreed they should set up a "structured forum for ongoing engagement" - and officials had made good progress on this.
"There is much for us to discuss as all parts of the UK work together on our shared priority of recovering from the pandemic," he said.
"The UK government is working closely with the devolved Scottish government on a variety of different issues."
And he added: "I look forward to meeting with you soon and working together in the interests of people in all parts of our country."
Ms Sturgeon tweeted on Monday that she had invited the PM to Bute House. She said the prime minister's trip would be the first chance for the pair to meet in person for a while.
The first minister said she believed people would find it "a bit odd and a bit strange" that Mr Johnson had chosen not to meet her.
Speaking to broadcasters, she said she did not feel "snubbed", but that it would have been the first opportunity to sit down and have a "face to face chat", describing the move as a "missed opportunity - but that's on him".
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who is also on a visit to Scotland, said he thought the prime minister should meet Ms Sturgeon.
He said the two should be working together on "the two most important things facing us" - the pandemic and the climate emergency.
He added: "We shouldn't have an argument about when they're going to meet or where - they need to work together on this."
They may not be meeting in person, but that doesn't mean Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon can't engage in some political games.
The first minister threw down a gauntlet very publicly when she posted her invitation to Mr Johnson on Twitter.
It was a win-win proposition for Ms Sturgeon, presenting the prime minister with the choice of looking like a visiting dignitary from a foreign power - or a scaredy cat swerving the jeering crowds which turned out for his last visit to Bute House.
Ultimately Mr Johnson has refused to take the bait, preferring to suggest a summit of leaders from around the UK - presumably where he can take the role of magnanimous host.
For all the talk of grown-up dialogue there is plainly no love lost between the pair, who will no doubt trade rhetoric via the media rather than face-to-face.
And with the constitutional question of Scottish independence still looming between them, the political power-plays are likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
The trip is Mr Johnson's first visit to Scotland since January - and his first since a pro-independence majority was returned at the Holyrood election in May.
There is no prospect of the pair seeing eye-to-eye on another referendum, but Ms Sturgeon had said she wanted to discuss how the governments could work together on "Covid recovery".
Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said the SNP leader had put out her invitation to the prime minister via Twitter, adding: "I'm not sure if he got it before everyone else got it on Twitter".
Mr Ross said: "His response was quite right. Nicola Sturgeon had agreed with the prime minister that governments across the UK would meet together. That is the right approach to take and that was the agreement made recently.
"There's constant dialogue between the Scottish and UK governments."
On the prime minister's last trip to Scotland in January, Ms Sturgeon questioned whether the trip was essential during lockdown restrictions.
Downing Street said it was important for the prime minister to be "visible and accessible" during the pandemic.
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Covid-19: NHS England prepares jabs plan for 12-15-year-olds - BBC News
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2021-08-26
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But any extension of the vaccination rollout next month will first depend on a recommendation from experts.
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UK
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The Netherlands is among the nations already rolling out Covid jabs to 12 to 15-year-olds
NHS organisations in England have been told to prepare for a possible extension of the Covid vaccination programme to all 12 to 15-year-olds.
Any change to the rollout next month will be dependant on a recommendation from experts on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
Jab offers in this age group only now go to people living with a vulnerable adult or certain health conditions.
The Department of Health said no decisions had been made.
But it confirmed that planning for a range of scenarios was taking place to ensure all eventualities were prepared for.
Earlier this month, the JCVI advised that all 16 and 17 year olds should be given a first dose of a vaccine. Unlike older age groups, no second dose is being scheduled.
The committee, which advises all four UK nations, has not made its final decision on whether the 12 to 15-year-old age group should be vaccinated.
The US, Canada, France and the Netherlands are among the countries which are already vaccinating children aged 12 and over.
The JCVI is weighing up the arguments on whether such a move should be made in the UK.
Experts are assessing the risks and benefits to children of vaccination and how much it might slow the wider spread of the virus.
One JCVI member, Prof Adam Finn, told Sky News this week that the committee was taking a "very cautious" approach.
It comes as UK Covid infection levels have been rising again, with more than 30,000 new cases confirmed each day in the last week.
The latest government data on Wednesday showed there had been a further 35,847 lab-confirmed cases, and 149 people had died within 28 days of a positive test.
Nearly 88% of over-16s have had the first dose of a vaccine, while 77.4% are fully-vaccinated.
The extension to the vaccination programme being planned for would coincide with the start of the new school year.
Prof Mike Tildesley, an infectious disease modeller at the University of Warwick, says September will be a crucial moment in the pandemic, when pupils are back in classrooms across the whole of the UK and people return to offices after the summer holiday.
A record number of daily Covid cases announced in Scotland on Wednesday was said to have been partly fuelled by the return of schools after the break.
Meanwhile, secondary school pupils in England are being urged to get tested before the start of the term and vaccinated if they have been invited for a jab.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58338481
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Afghanistan: What's the impact of Taliban's return on international order? - BBC News
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2021-08-18
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What is the diplomatic fallout and how allies and rivals are looking at the US following the Taliban takeover?
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US & Canada
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The Biden administration's rush for the exit in Afghanistan has been accompanied by a similar rush to judgement among pundits and commentators who, by and large, have castigated the US president for a decision that many see as unnecessary and a betrayal, both of those who served in Afghanistan and of the Afghan people themselves.
The heartbreaking images from the airport in Kabul only reinforce this message. And there is justifiably a good deal of emotion to go round. The West has invested a lot of blood, time and money in Afghanistan. The Afghan people, much, much, more.
It is hard to argue with the criticism of the Biden administration's precipitate departure. Afghanistan may indeed be un-salvageable, its governing structures too unrepresentative and corrupt. This though only underscores the argument that Afghanistan was not "lost" in the past two years but during the previous 20.
Nonetheless the decision to cut and run is being seen as a terrible blow to US credibility - to its reliability as a partner, and indeed to its moral standing in world affairs. How does this square with Mr Biden's clarion cry on taking office, that America was back?
Comparisons are being made with Vietnam - the similarities with helicopters shuttling US nationals away from a falling city being too much for the newspaper front-pages to resist. But in reality - despite the superficial similarities -there are some important differences, too.
South Vietnam collapsed some two years after US troops left. Indeed it looks as though the Americans expected their Afghan allies to soldier on for a significant period without them. The US was humbled by Vietnam - its population deeply divided and its military morale damaged. But while Vietnam turned out to be a tragic side-show in the Cold War, the US still ultimately won that contest. Nato was not weakened. US allies around the globe did not shy away from expecting US support. The US remained the pre-eminent superpower.
Afghanistan is altogether different. Internal divisions in the US over this conflict have in no way been comparable to Vietnam's. The Afghanistan mission was certainly unpopular at home but there were no mass rallies against it.
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Crucially though, today's international context is dramatically different from that of the 1970s. The US - indeed the West in general - is engaged in multiple contests, in few of which they are outright winners. The Afghan collapse is potentially a disaster in the so-called war on terror. But in the wider conflict between democracy and authoritarianism, Washington's failure can only be seen as a serious set-back.
There will be smiles in Moscow and Beijing, at least for now. The Western model of liberal interventionism - promoted as a means of spreading democracy and the rule of law - has perhaps been tested to destruction in Afghanistan. One cannot see much enthusiasm for similar undertakings in the future.
Those of Washington's allies who joined in the Afghanistan project are smarting. They feel badly let down. Even British ministers, jealous of their oft touted "special relationship" with Washington, have been openly critical of President Biden's decision.
And for America's European allies in general, it underscores how dependent they are upon the US and how little their views count once the White House decides to go in one particular direction.
So bad news for the West. But how long-lasting will be the smiles in Beijing, Moscow and even Islamabad? It was Pakistan that nurtured and gave safe haven to the Taliban for its own geo-strategic purposes. But if renewed Taliban rule produces a simple turning back of the clock - if international terrorism finds a renewed haven - then Pakistan may find that the growing turbulence in the region has decidedly negative consequences.
China is happy to see the US failure. Indeed, if Mr Biden's reason to pull out from Afghanistan was due to his desire to re-focus US national power to rival a rising China, then this step has simply given China an opportunity to expand its own influence in Afghanistan and beyond.
China, though, must have concern, too. Its shares a short border with Afghanistan. It is actively persecuting its own Muslim minority and must be concerned at the possibility that anti-Beijing Islamist terrorists might seek to use Afghanistan as a base. No wonder then that Chinese diplomacy over recent weeks has been so eager to court the Taliban.
Russia, too, must have worries about the return of instability and terrorism. Maybe it feels a little better about itself now that the US has similarly been humbled by Afghan tribal fighters, just as the Soviet Union was in the late-1980s.
But its chief interest is the security of a large part of Central Asia, many of whose states are allies of Moscow. This summer Russia moved tanks to the Tajikistan-Afghan frontier for exercises intended to demonstrate its determination to prevent any spill-over from an Afghan collapse.
So in the short-term, the Afghan debacle certainly benefits the West's opponents. But their attitudes were not going to change anyway.
What really matters are the ramifications among Washington's allies. What will they take away from the Afghan experience? Beyond the immediate crisis, will the NATO countries, Israel, Taiwan, South Korea or Japan see the US as a less reliable partner? If they do, then Mr Biden's decision to quit Afghanistan will prove fateful, indeed.
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Coronavirus: Travel changes are not enough, say industry bosses - BBC News
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2021-08-05
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France is moving to the amber list as part of widespread changes to the traffic light system.
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UK
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UK travel rules must be simplified, says travel chief
Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Travel Association, says "a simpler [international travel] system is definitely what is required to avoid confusion in the case of consumers". Speaking to BBC Radio 4's World At One programme, he said it would also provide some form of certainty for people who are wanting to travel - and in some cases "absolutely need to travel". Walsh also said the market for PCR tests was "in many cases unregulated", with tests being advertised online for £20 but actually costing £150. A Covid test is needed three days before returning from an amber country, and a PCR test two days after arriving. Those arriving from Spain are being asked to use a PCR test for the first of those two tests. "This expensive and unnecessary testing I think needs to be challenged and I think the government should demonstrate why they require it," Walsh said. "I think there is a valid reason and a concern, and I would accept that maybe for some of these high-risk countries that have been identified you can make the argument that some form of testing should be done." But, referring to the number of PCR tests he said had been taken by travellers since 25 February, he added: "I don't think you can justify requiring 2.2 million people to undertake PCR tests when only 8,000 of those are subsequently sequenced."
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Afghanistan pullout: Biden's biggest call yet - will it be his most calamitous? - BBC News
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2021-08-15
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Joe Biden won't be seeing the "war is over" headlines he hoped for when he decided to withdraw.
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US & Canada
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If you like neat lines, tidiness and admire symmetry, what's not to like about the decision of Joe Biden to pull American combat troops out of Afghanistan by 11 September 2021 - exactly 20 years on from 9/11?
In modern day America it often feels that all roads lead back to 9/11; the single most defining - and scarring - event since Pearl Harbor: the surprise attack by the Japanese on America's Pacific fleet, which would ultimately bring America into World War Two.
And so it was that 9/11 led to this country's longest military encounter. The attack on the Twin Towers, the plane that flew into the Pentagon, and the one that crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, were initially the spur for a surge of US nationalism. Young people - in fact people of all ages - were going along to armed forces recruitment offices wanting to sign up. America had come under attack; these patriots wanted to fight to defend the country the "land of the free", and seek revenge on those who would do the US harm.
And don't mistake this for some kind of kneejerk jingoism. It wasn't that. I knew many people - not just Americans - who were of a liberal bent and had been no great fans of all the doings of the US of A but who have a visceral sense this was a moment where you had to pick your team.
Were you on the side of the rule of law, free and fair elections, due process, sexual equality, universal education? Or were you on the side of those who would fly planes into buildings, or would stone people to death, or throw homosexuals off of buildings, or deny girls schooling? If that seems a massive over-simplification, maybe it is - but in the devastating aftermath of 9/11, that is how it seemed to many.
Biden makes a surprise visit to Afghanistan as vice-president in 2011
But by 2016 it was one of the factors that led to Donald Trump's election: the weariness of the "endless wars" as candidate Trump would refer to the quagmires of Afghanistan and Iraq; the wariness of America being able to act as the world's policeman.
Americans understandably wanted to pull up the drawbridge, bring the troops home, leave it to the people in those countries to sort out their own problems, and finally give up on the idea that a US model of liberal democracy was an exportable commodity that could be imposed. The liberal interventionist crusade was over.
Trump, if he had won last November, would have pulled out US troops, probably quicker. Although Joe Biden inherited Trump's promise to withdraw, in policy terms the easiest thing would have been to continue to sign the cheques to pay for American servicemen and women to stay in Afghanistan for another year. And then another. And another after that.
The political pressure was by no means overwhelming. If anything, the reverse. The defence top brass, the foreign policy establishment, America's allies abroad thought anything other than the status quo would be reckless. But one question was gnawing at the new president, and it was the one posed by Hillel the Elder back in biblical times: "If not now, then when?"
Biden - who advised President Barack Obama not to send more troops in 2009 but lost the argument - went with now, in what could be the most consequential single decision of his presidency.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Taliban leaders speak to BBC News about conquer and compromise
When 9/11 happened I was the BBC's Paris correspondent, reporting on Eurotunnel's attempt to force the closure of a Red Cross refugee centre called Sangatte - where many of the world's storm-tossed refugees and migrants congregated before making the final leg of the journey to the UK.
I was driving to Calais when I got a call from a colleague telling me to stop at the nearest service station to watch TV, and see what was unfolding.
We didn't know what would happen next - or where we would end up. One year into the optimism of a new millennium, there was a narrative and it wasn't a happy one - the war on terror, a clash of civilisations, call it what you will. At the time the two stories could not have been more different, but a lot of the bedraggled people we met on the roads around Calais were from Afghanistan fleeing Taliban rule.
It's worth remembering why the US, UK and others went into Afghanistan. The Taliban had - in effect - become a finishing school for Islamist terrorists wanting to wage jihad against the west. Al-Qaeda wannabes were going into the country to train for holy war. The 9/11 terrorists had honed their skills and hatched their plot there. Removing the Taliban and tackling al-Qaeda became critical for global security.
Within a few weeks of 9/11, I was in northern Afghanistan, travelling via Delhi and then Dushanbe in Tajikistan to get there. We were moving with the US and UK-backed Northern Alliance troops as they pushed the Taliban out.
Ousting the Taliban was considered a global priority 20 years ago, writes the author (right)
Our first day was spent travelling from Khoja Bahauddin, then the Northern Alliance HQ along a road where the Taliban had killed a number of journalists in an ambush two days earlier. After one night we ended up in a town called Taleqan. It had fallen the night before we arrived. One of the iconic shots was of a girls-school classroom that had become a weapons dump for Taliban rockets that in their hasty retreat they had left behind.
The stubborn last stronghold was Kunduz - a vital communication corridor sitting between Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif and then further north to the border with Uzbekistan.
Now both Taleqan and Kunduz have come back under Taliban control, with a third of the country's regional capitals now under their control.
And that raises a super-uncomfortable question for Joe Biden and his "if not now, then when" policy.
Twenty years on and so many lives lost, and so many billions of dollars spent, what was it for? What's been achieved? What do you say to the families of all those servicemen killed by the Taliban now that the US is giving up? What's to stop terror groups from re-establishing their jihad training camps? At the UN Security Council hearing last Friday it was reported that up to 20 different terror groups, involving thousands of foreign fighters were already fighting with Taliban forces.
The regions where Jon travelled are now back under Taliban control
I'm sure as I am writing this more families will be packing up their possessions fearful of what Taliban control will mean, perhaps heading to Calais and then the UK. Will the girls' schools return to become weapons storage facilities again?
The scars of 9/11 are clear everywhere - thousands of servicemen have come back with prosthetic limbs and disturbed minds. Suicide rates have been rising. Families have lost loved ones. On America's streets are men with red plastic beer cups begging for loose change, many of them with signs saying they are veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.
US-led forces toppled the Taliban: In 2001 US-led forces overthrew Afghanistan's Taliban rulers after the 9/11 attacks masterminded by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was based there.
Twenty years of occupation and military operations followed: The US and allies oversaw elections and built up Afghan security forces, but the Taliban continued to launch attacks.
Eventually the US made a deal with the Taliban: They would pull out if the militants agreed not to host terrorist groups. But talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government failed. US-led forces withdrew this year and the Taliban have now retaken most of the country.
The desire to stay at home and shut yourself away from a troubling world is completely understandable. There is no surprise that "America First" as a slogan had such resonance. George W Bush was not advocating that back in 2001 - but there were no US troops in Afghanistan or Iraq then. And that didn't keep America safe when early that morning, across those gin-clear blue skies passenger aeroplanes were hijacked and became al-Qaeda-guided missiles, flying into their targets killing thousands of people doing nothing more provocative than going about their daily lives.
There's also a difference between enforcing your will as the world's policeman, and being a peacekeeper. Thousands of American troops are still stationed in South Korea - even though the Korean war was 70 years ago. The calculation of successive US presidents has been that a tense peace is better than a hot war or a destabilised region.
Joe Biden was hoping his decision would result in headlines like "Afghan War Ends" or "America's longest war is over". But 20 years on, and the Taliban now re-establishing control with all that could flow from that, might historians in future judge that the 20th anniversary marked the start of the second Afghan war?
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58195336
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Floods: Research shows millions more at risk of flooding - BBC News
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2021-08-09
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Numbers of people exposed to flooding globally have risen by almost a quarter in two decades.
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Science & Environment
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A man is rescued from recent floods in central China
A new study shows that the percentage of the global population at risk from flooding has risen by almost a quarter since the year 2000.
Satellite images were used to document the rise, which is far greater than had been predicted by computer models.
The analysis shows that migration and a growing number of flood events are behind the rapid increase.
By 2030, millions more will experience increased flooding due to climate and demographic change, the authors say.
Flooding is the environmental disaster that impacts more people than any other, say researchers.
That view has echoed around the world in recent weeks, with huge inundations destroying lives and property.
Thousands of people had to evacuate in China as floods rose following storms and heavy rain
In Germany and China, record downpours overwhelmed defences, amid arguments about levels of preparation.
One of the challenges with flooding, according to researchers, is that most maps of where the waters will likely penetrate are based on models.
These simulate floods based on information such as elevation, rainfall and data from ground sensors.
But they have significant limitations: they fail to consider population or infrastructure changes and are unable to predict random events such as dam breaches.
So when Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in 2017, around 80,000 homes were flooded that were not on government risk maps.
In this new study, researchers looked at daily satellite imagery to estimate both the extent of flooding and the number of people exposed to over 900 large flood events between 2000 and 2018.
Flooding in Germany appeared to take the authorities by surprise
They found that between 255 and 290 million people were directly affected - and between 2000 and 2015, the number of people living in these flooded locations increased by 58-86 million.
This represents an increase of 20-24% in the proportion of the world population exposed to floods, some 10 times higher than previous estimates.
The increase was not evenly spread throughout the world. Countries with increased flood exposure were mainly in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
In European and North American nations, the risk was stable or decreasing.
Your device does not support this visualisation
Around 90% of the flood events observed by the scientists were in South and Southeast Asia, around the basins of major rivers including the Indus, Ganges-Brahmaputra and the Mekong.
"We were able to capture a lot of floods in Southeast Asia more than other places, because they're so slow-moving and so the clouds move, and we're able to get a really clear image of the flood," explained lead author Dr Beth Tellman from the University of Arizona and chief science officer at Cloud to Street, a global flood-tracking platform.
"But there was also just a lot of flooding, really high impactful flooding in southern Asia and Southeast Asia. There's also a large human population that settled near rivers for really important reasons [such as] agriculture," Dr Tellman explained. But she added that this "also, unfortunately exposes people to a lot of flooding events".
A dam collapse in Michigan last year - breaches only accounted for 2% of floods in the study
One of the puzzling aspects of the research is why people in many countries are moving into flood prone areas rather than away from them.
While the global population grew by over 18% between 2000 and 2015, in areas of observed flooding, the population increased by 34%.
Dr Tellman says that one aspect of this growth is related to climate change, which is changing the locations of flood plains to encompass more people. But economics also plays an important role.
"Places that have flooded tend to be really cheap land for informal development, so in Guwahati, India, and Dhaka in Bangladesh, we see people moving in, and so flooded areas then become settled," she said.
"It may not be people's choice to live in those areas because they might not have a lot of agency. If there were really good public housing programmes or other options, I think people probably wouldn't choose to settle in a hazardous area."
The authors say that the key drivers of flooding are heavy rainfall, tropical storms or surges and snow and ice melt. Dam breaks represented less than 2% of floods but had the highest increased incidence in terms of population exposed.
Looking to the future, the authors say they expect the numbers at risk of flooding to continue to rise.
They estimate that by 2030, there will be an extra 25 countries experiencing increasing floods in addition to the 32 being impacted at present.
"We estimate that an additional new 179.2 million people will be exposed to floods by 2030 in 100-year zones and most of that is due to demographic change," said Dr Tellman.
"Around 50 million people extra people will be exposed to inundation, we think, due directly to climate change explicitly."
The flooding database behind the research, said to be the largest and most accurate yet compiled, will be openly hosted here.
The study has been published in the journal Nature.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58087479
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David Cameron lacked judgement over Greensill, MPs' report says - BBC News
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2021-08-09
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David Cameron showed a lack of judgement when he informally lobbied on behalf of Greensill Capital, MPs say.
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Business
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David Cameron showed a "significant lack of judgement" in the way he lobbied the government on behalf of Greensill Capital, a report has found.
The Treasury committee also questioned the former prime minister's judgement on the financial health of the now-collapsed lending firm.
The report comes after Mr Cameron was found to have lobbied for Greensill by sending texts to the chancellor.
Mr Cameron said he acted in good faith but there were "lessons to be learnt".
The Treasury committee said that while Mr Cameron did not break the rules over lobbying by former ministers, there was a "good case for strengthening them", with the current ones offering "insufficient strength".
The committee concluded Mr Cameron's "less formal means" to lobby the government to help Greensill, where he was an advisor, were "aided by his previous position of prime minister".
They added had he "taken a broader and more enquiring assessment of the business", there were "signals available" which might have led him to take a "more restrained approach" when asking the government to help the firm.
Mel Stride, chair of the Treasury committee, said the Treasury "should have encouraged" Mr Cameron into "more formal lines of communication as soon as it had identified his personal financial incentives".
He added: "However, the Treasury took the right decision to reject the objectives of his lobbying, and the committee found that Treasury ministers and officials behaved with complete and absolute integrity."
At the start of the coronavirus pandemic the government said it would back loans to large companies struggling in lockdown.
Greensill Capital, which has since collapsed, made seven loans totalling £350m to companies owned by Sanjeev Gupta's business empire, GFG Alliance, which included Liberty Steel, the UK's third-largest steel manufacturer which employs 3,000 people.
It was revealed in March, that when advising Greensill, the former prime minister texted Conservative ministers within the Treasury to appeal for access to emergency loans for the finance firm, but the requests were rejected.
Mr Cameron has been cleared of breaking any rules over his lobbying, however critics have continued to question his access to ministers.
The Treasury committee said the "central argument" for Greensill's attempt to gain access to government support was "more of a sales pitch than a reality".
The committee acknowledged Treasury officials and ministers behaved properly in their handling of Mr Cameron's lobbying, and "took the right decision" in preventing Greensill from accessing the Covid Corporate Financing Facility.
However, they added members were "very surprised" by the Treasury's claim that Mr Cameron's former position had no meaningful effect on how Greensill's application for access to the CCFF was dealt with.
"Mr Cameron was an ex-prime minister, who had worked with those he was lobbying and had access to their mobile phone numbers," the committee said.
"The committee believes that the Treasury's unwillingness to accept that it could have made any better choices in how it engaged in this case is a missed opportunity for reflection."
In response to the report, Mr Cameron said: "While I am pleased that the report confirms I broke no rules, I very much take on board its wider points.
"I always acted in good faith, and had no idea until the end of last year that Greensill Capital was in danger of failure.
"However, I have been clear all along that there are lessons to be learnt. As I said to the committee, I accept that communications of this nature should be done in future through only the most formal of channels.
"I agree that the guidance on how former ministers engage with government could be updated and was pleased to provide some suggestions on this to the committee."
A Treasury spokesman said: "This report is clear that the Treasury was right to consider Greensill's proposals, right to ultimately reject their proposals, and concludes that the Treasury behaved with absolute integrity throughout the process."
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner said Mr Cameron being cleared of breaking any rules "proves that the rules that are supposed to regulate lobbying are completely unfit for purpose".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57889549
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news_business-57889549
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Afghanistan: What's the impact of Taliban's return on international order? - BBC News
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2021-08-19
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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What is the diplomatic fallout and how allies and rivals are looking at the US following the Taliban takeover?
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US & Canada
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The Biden administration's rush for the exit in Afghanistan has been accompanied by a similar rush to judgement among pundits and commentators who, by and large, have castigated the US president for a decision that many see as unnecessary and a betrayal, both of those who served in Afghanistan and of the Afghan people themselves.
The heartbreaking images from the airport in Kabul only reinforce this message. And there is justifiably a good deal of emotion to go round. The West has invested a lot of blood, time and money in Afghanistan. The Afghan people, much, much, more.
It is hard to argue with the criticism of the Biden administration's precipitate departure. Afghanistan may indeed be un-salvageable, its governing structures too unrepresentative and corrupt. This though only underscores the argument that Afghanistan was not "lost" in the past two years but during the previous 20.
Nonetheless the decision to cut and run is being seen as a terrible blow to US credibility - to its reliability as a partner, and indeed to its moral standing in world affairs. How does this square with Mr Biden's clarion cry on taking office, that America was back?
Comparisons are being made with Vietnam - the similarities with helicopters shuttling US nationals away from a falling city being too much for the newspaper front-pages to resist. But in reality - despite the superficial similarities -there are some important differences, too.
South Vietnam collapsed some two years after US troops left. Indeed it looks as though the Americans expected their Afghan allies to soldier on for a significant period without them. The US was humbled by Vietnam - its population deeply divided and its military morale damaged. But while Vietnam turned out to be a tragic side-show in the Cold War, the US still ultimately won that contest. Nato was not weakened. US allies around the globe did not shy away from expecting US support. The US remained the pre-eminent superpower.
Afghanistan is altogether different. Internal divisions in the US over this conflict have in no way been comparable to Vietnam's. The Afghanistan mission was certainly unpopular at home but there were no mass rallies against it.
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Crucially though, today's international context is dramatically different from that of the 1970s. The US - indeed the West in general - is engaged in multiple contests, in few of which they are outright winners. The Afghan collapse is potentially a disaster in the so-called war on terror. But in the wider conflict between democracy and authoritarianism, Washington's failure can only be seen as a serious set-back.
There will be smiles in Moscow and Beijing, at least for now. The Western model of liberal interventionism - promoted as a means of spreading democracy and the rule of law - has perhaps been tested to destruction in Afghanistan. One cannot see much enthusiasm for similar undertakings in the future.
Those of Washington's allies who joined in the Afghanistan project are smarting. They feel badly let down. Even British ministers, jealous of their oft touted "special relationship" with Washington, have been openly critical of President Biden's decision.
And for America's European allies in general, it underscores how dependent they are upon the US and how little their views count once the White House decides to go in one particular direction.
So bad news for the West. But how long-lasting will be the smiles in Beijing, Moscow and even Islamabad? It was Pakistan that nurtured and gave safe haven to the Taliban for its own geo-strategic purposes. But if renewed Taliban rule produces a simple turning back of the clock - if international terrorism finds a renewed haven - then Pakistan may find that the growing turbulence in the region has decidedly negative consequences.
China is happy to see the US failure. Indeed, if Mr Biden's reason to pull out from Afghanistan was due to his desire to re-focus US national power to rival a rising China, then this step has simply given China an opportunity to expand its own influence in Afghanistan and beyond.
China, though, must have concern, too. Its shares a short border with Afghanistan. It is actively persecuting its own Muslim minority and must be concerned at the possibility that anti-Beijing Islamist terrorists might seek to use Afghanistan as a base. No wonder then that Chinese diplomacy over recent weeks has been so eager to court the Taliban.
Russia, too, must have worries about the return of instability and terrorism. Maybe it feels a little better about itself now that the US has similarly been humbled by Afghan tribal fighters, just as the Soviet Union was in the late-1980s.
But its chief interest is the security of a large part of Central Asia, many of whose states are allies of Moscow. This summer Russia moved tanks to the Tajikistan-Afghan frontier for exercises intended to demonstrate its determination to prevent any spill-over from an Afghan collapse.
So in the short-term, the Afghan debacle certainly benefits the West's opponents. But their attitudes were not going to change anyway.
What really matters are the ramifications among Washington's allies. What will they take away from the Afghan experience? Beyond the immediate crisis, will the NATO countries, Israel, Taiwan, South Korea or Japan see the US as a less reliable partner? If they do, then Mr Biden's decision to quit Afghanistan will prove fateful, indeed.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58248864
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Covid: UK vaccine booster scheme likely to start in September - Sajid Javid - BBC News
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2021-08-19
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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The proposed rollout of third doses is likely to start in September, the health secretary says.
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UK
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A UK Covid vaccine booster scheme will take place and is likely to start next month, the health secretary has said.
Sajid Javid said he was uncertain of the exact start date as the government was waiting for the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation's "final advice" before proceeding.
Mr Javid added the "most vulnerable" would be offered the third jab first.
However, it remains unclear whether the booster scheme will be for all adults, or just some, more vulnerable groups.
Interim advice from the JCVI, released last month, suggested more than 30 million of the most vulnerable people - including all over-50s - should receive a third dose.
Asked about the scheme on Thursday, Mr Javid said: "We are going to have a booster scheme. It will start some time in September.
"I couldn't tell you exactly when because before we start it... we need to get the final advice from our group of experts, our independent scientific and medical advisers, the JCVI, and so we're waiting for their final opinion."
Earlier in the day, Prof Adam Finn told the BBC that the JCVI, of which he is a member, would be "imminently deciding" that some people "will need a third dose, particularly people who we know are very unlikely to be well protected by those first two doses".
"But I think we do need more evidence before we can make a firm decision on a much broader booster programme," he added.
The health secretary says "a" booster campaign will take place, but the more important question is "who" will be boosted. We still don't know.
There are scientific and ethical arguments about a booster campaign.
For some there is a clear benefit - particularly those with weakened immune systems in whom it takes three doses to do the job of two.
But for the rest of the population, the evidence so far shows two doses are providing lasting protection from becoming seriously ill and needing hospital treatment.
Whether a mass vaccination campaign is necessary or should be far more targeted is the subject of intense debate.
This comes at a time that rich countries are being accused of giving vaccines to people at little risk from Covid and that would save far more lives if they were shared with the world.
About 70% of the entire UK population has had at least one jab. In the poorest countries that figure is about 1%.
The announcement comes after it was revealed more than 125,000 16 and 17-year-olds in England have had the vaccine in the two weeks since the NHS was given approval to offer that age group a jab.
In total, 47,460,526 first doses have now been given across the UK, while 41,157,069 people have had two doses.
But the decision to offer people in the UK a third jab is not without controversy.
Immunologist Prof Peter Openshaw, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), which advises the government, said the "question about boosters is a contentious one".
He said studies into the effectiveness of booster schemes were still ongoing and "everyone is very keen that if we do have surplus vaccines, that they're not necessarily used in this country, but might be sent overseas".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Immunologist Prof Peter Openshaw: "The question of boosters is a contentious one"
And, earlier this month, the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group said doses needed to "go where they can have the greatest impact" - to protect unvaccinated people abroad.
Prof Sir Andrew Pollard, who led the team that created the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, said decisions on whether to give boosters "should be scientifically driven".
Asked whether the JCVI had concerns about plans for the booster scheme, Mr Javid said: "It's only with their expert advice that government would want to continue with their plans.
"I don't want to prejudge what they're going to say but, based on their interim advice, I think we can be confident that we will start a booster scheme next month."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58271911
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news_uk-58271911
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Plymouth shooting: Gunman argued with mum before attack - BBC News
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2021-08-19
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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The five victims, including a father and daughter out walking their dog, were killed in Plymouth.
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Devon
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Tributes have been paid to victims of the Plymouth shooting
The Plymouth gunman killed five people with a shotgun after a row with his mother, a coroner has heard.
Maxine Davison, Stephen Washington and Kate Shepherd were killed in Keyham last Thursday, along with father and daughter Lee and Sophie Martyn who were walking their dog.
Jake Davison, 22, carried out a 12-minute attack before turning the gun on himself.
Mr Arrow heard evidence from senior investigating officer Det Insp Steve Hambly, who said all five victims had died from shotgun wounds.
He said Davison shot his 51-year-old mother Maxine, also known as Maxine Chapman, before killing three-year-old Sophie and her father Lee, 43.
Maxine Davison was shot and killed by her son, Jake, in her home
Sophie Martyn, three, and her father Lee were among Davison's victims
Davison then killed Mr Washington, 59, before shooting 66-year-old Mrs Shepherd, who later died at Derriford Hospital. He also shot and wounded a 33-year-old man and a 53-year-old woman before turning the gun on himself.
Det Insp Hambly, from Devon and Cornwall Police's major crime investigation team, said Ms Davison, a former trawler woman by occupation, "sustained fatal gunshot wounds" at her home in Biddick Drive following an argument with her son.
He said Mr Martyn, a carpenter, and his daughter Sophie had died from shotgun wounds while walking the family dog in the same street.
Stephen Washington was a "devoted family man, a loving husband, father, grandfather and best friend" said his family
Det Insp Hambly said Mr Washington, who was a carer for his wife, was killed on a nearby footpath while walking his dogs.
He said Mrs Shepherd was shot while walking along Henderson Place.
He added she received immediate medical attention but sadly died despite the best efforts of medics, at 20:25 BST in Derriford Hospital.
The inquest heard Kate Shepherd, 66, was an artist
Mr Arrow said he formally opened all five of the inquests and asked for a file to be prepared within 12 weeks.
In a separate five-minute hearing, the coroner opened and adjourned the inquest into the death of apprentice crane operator Davison.
Det Insp Hambly said: "The police are not looking for any other person in respect of this incident."
He said "on present evidence the medical cause of death has been ascertained as shotgun wounds".
The coroner adjourned all the inquests and fixed a provisional date for pre-inquest reviews on 9 December.
One of the hearts lights up the sky over Plymouth
The inquests come after five heart-shaped fireworks were set off at the British Firework Championships in the city on Wednesday to pay tribute to the victims.
The city fell silent for a minute before the fireworks, followed by a minute of applause to honour the victims.
The event went ahead after organisers had talks with the council and residents.
The competition, held in Plymouth since 1997, will continue on Thursday and see three competitors putting on a 10-minute display.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-58260590
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Facebook reveals most-seen posts are inane questions, not politics - BBC News
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2021-08-19
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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"Does sugar go in spaghetti?" is among the US's top posts, as Facebook battles right-wing content claims.
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Technology
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After being accused of spreading right-wing content, Facebook has revealed that its most-viewed posts include asking if sugar goes with spaghetti.
Its first-ever report on the contents of people's news feeds in the United States focuses on how many people see a post rather than any other measurement.
It shows a word search promising to reveal "your reality" was the most popular post for three months in 2021.
Similarly frivolous question posts with giant text formed most of the top 20.
"Please settle this debate, does sugar go in spaghetti?" placed fourth, with 58.6 million views - and 3.8 million arguments in the comments.
The most-seen Facebook post in the US between April and June was this "personality" word search
"I'm old but I look young challenge. Drop a pic 30 and up" rose to a lofty second. Nearly five million people obliged.
But arguably the Facebook page "The typical mom" came out on top, as the only one with two posts in the top 20: "Date yourself by naming one concert you have attended" and "what happens in your head when you add 28 plus 47?"
Facebook noted that "some of the posts in the top 20 may contain lower-quality content".
The report attempts to draw a distinction between what is seen most, detailed in this report, and what is engaged with most through likes, comments, and shares.
It serves as a counterpoint to data gathered with Crowdtangle, Facebook's engagement-measuring tool, which suggests that right-leaning political content is dominant on Facebook, an allegation which was widely reported last year.
Facebook has fiercely pushed back against that idea, saying that only 6% of content seen by users is political.
In its November post on the issue, it focused on the "reach" of links and posts, instead of engagement, which dramatically changes what is "most popular".
The new report similarly focuses on most-viewed content rather than any other metric, and the resulting list is made up of harmless posts.
It looked at content between April and June, and only examined the US. It also discarded views from paid ads to "boost" a post, Facebook said.
So much content is posted to Facebook that, added together, the top 20 posts still only accounted for "for less than one-tenth of a per cent of all US content views", the social network said.
Two posts were notable for being substantially different from the rest of the top 20 - a post by Joe Biden, 100 days into his presidency, in which he wrote that "America is getting back on track" (number six), and a video from 5-Minute Crafts on how to build a small paddling pool (number 10).
While most of the top posts seemed to be engagement-chasing question posts, not everything in the report pointed in that direction.
Facebook has, for example, long argued that it drives substantial traffic to news organisations, despite a sometimes frosty relationship between publishers and the tech giant in recent years.
While YouTube, Amazon, and children's charity Unicef were the top three most-seen sites though links, five major organisations - ABC News, the Daily Mail, NBC News, CNN, and CBS News - made it into the top 20 domains.
The most-seen links are more varied.
The single most-viewed one was for an obscure Green Bay Packers American football team site. Next down the list was a seller of CBD - a cannabis extract, while a Christian clothing firm and a local Virginia radio station also featured.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58270497
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Afghanistan pullout: Biden's biggest call yet - will it be his most calamitous? - BBC News
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2021-08-16
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Joe Biden won't be seeing the "war is over" headlines he hoped for when he decided to withdraw.
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US & Canada
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If you like neat lines, tidiness and admire symmetry, what's not to like about the decision of Joe Biden to pull American combat troops out of Afghanistan by 11 September 2021 - exactly 20 years on from 9/11?
In modern day America it often feels that all roads lead back to 9/11; the single most defining - and scarring - event since Pearl Harbor: the surprise attack by the Japanese on America's Pacific fleet, which would ultimately bring America into World War Two.
And so it was that 9/11 led to this country's longest military encounter. The attack on the Twin Towers, the plane that flew into the Pentagon, and the one that crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, were initially the spur for a surge of US nationalism. Young people - in fact people of all ages - were going along to armed forces recruitment offices wanting to sign up. America had come under attack; these patriots wanted to fight to defend the country the "land of the free", and seek revenge on those who would do the US harm.
And don't mistake this for some kind of kneejerk jingoism. It wasn't that. I knew many people - not just Americans - who were of a liberal bent and had been no great fans of all the doings of the US of A but who have a visceral sense this was a moment where you had to pick your team.
Were you on the side of the rule of law, free and fair elections, due process, sexual equality, universal education? Or were you on the side of those who would fly planes into buildings, or would stone people to death, or throw homosexuals off of buildings, or deny girls schooling? If that seems a massive over-simplification, maybe it is - but in the devastating aftermath of 9/11, that is how it seemed to many.
Biden makes a surprise visit to Afghanistan as vice-president in 2011
But by 2016 it was one of the factors that led to Donald Trump's election: the weariness of the "endless wars" as candidate Trump would refer to the quagmires of Afghanistan and Iraq; the wariness of America being able to act as the world's policeman.
Americans understandably wanted to pull up the drawbridge, bring the troops home, leave it to the people in those countries to sort out their own problems, and finally give up on the idea that a US model of liberal democracy was an exportable commodity that could be imposed. The liberal interventionist crusade was over.
Trump, if he had won last November, would have pulled out US troops, probably quicker. Although Joe Biden inherited Trump's promise to withdraw, in policy terms the easiest thing would have been to continue to sign the cheques to pay for American servicemen and women to stay in Afghanistan for another year. And then another. And another after that.
The political pressure was by no means overwhelming. If anything, the reverse. The defence top brass, the foreign policy establishment, America's allies abroad thought anything other than the status quo would be reckless. But one question was gnawing at the new president, and it was the one posed by Hillel the Elder back in biblical times: "If not now, then when?"
Biden - who advised President Barack Obama not to send more troops in 2009 but lost the argument - went with now, in what could be the most consequential single decision of his presidency.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Taliban leaders speak to BBC News about conquer and compromise
When 9/11 happened I was the BBC's Paris correspondent, reporting on Eurotunnel's attempt to force the closure of a Red Cross refugee centre called Sangatte - where many of the world's storm-tossed refugees and migrants congregated before making the final leg of the journey to the UK.
I was driving to Calais when I got a call from a colleague telling me to stop at the nearest service station to watch TV, and see what was unfolding.
We didn't know what would happen next - or where we would end up. One year into the optimism of a new millennium, there was a narrative and it wasn't a happy one - the war on terror, a clash of civilisations, call it what you will. At the time the two stories could not have been more different, but a lot of the bedraggled people we met on the roads around Calais were from Afghanistan fleeing Taliban rule.
It's worth remembering why the US, UK and others went into Afghanistan. The Taliban had - in effect - become a finishing school for Islamist terrorists wanting to wage jihad against the west. Al-Qaeda wannabes were going into the country to train for holy war. The 9/11 terrorists had honed their skills and hatched their plot there. Removing the Taliban and tackling al-Qaeda became critical for global security.
Within a few weeks of 9/11, I was in northern Afghanistan, travelling via Delhi and then Dushanbe in Tajikistan to get there. We were moving with the US and UK-backed Northern Alliance troops as they pushed the Taliban out.
Ousting the Taliban was considered a global priority 20 years ago, writes the author (right)
Our first day was spent travelling from Khoja Bahauddin, then the Northern Alliance HQ along a road where the Taliban had killed a number of journalists in an ambush two days earlier. After one night we ended up in a town called Taleqan. It had fallen the night before we arrived. One of the iconic shots was of a girls-school classroom that had become a weapons dump for Taliban rockets that in their hasty retreat they had left behind.
The stubborn last stronghold was Kunduz - a vital communication corridor sitting between Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif and then further north to the border with Uzbekistan.
Now both Taleqan and Kunduz have come back under Taliban control, with a third of the country's regional capitals now under their control.
And that raises a super-uncomfortable question for Joe Biden and his "if not now, then when" policy.
Twenty years on and so many lives lost, and so many billions of dollars spent, what was it for? What's been achieved? What do you say to the families of all those servicemen killed by the Taliban now that the US is giving up? What's to stop terror groups from re-establishing their jihad training camps? At the UN Security Council hearing last Friday it was reported that up to 20 different terror groups, involving thousands of foreign fighters were already fighting with Taliban forces.
The regions where Jon travelled are now back under Taliban control
I'm sure as I am writing this more families will be packing up their possessions fearful of what Taliban control will mean, perhaps heading to Calais and then the UK. Will the girls' schools return to become weapons storage facilities again?
The scars of 9/11 are clear everywhere - thousands of servicemen have come back with prosthetic limbs and disturbed minds. Suicide rates have been rising. Families have lost loved ones. On America's streets are men with red plastic beer cups begging for loose change, many of them with signs saying they are veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.
US-led forces toppled the Taliban: In 2001 US-led forces overthrew Afghanistan's Taliban rulers after the 9/11 attacks masterminded by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was based there.
Twenty years of occupation and military operations followed: The US and allies oversaw elections and built up Afghan security forces, but the Taliban continued to launch attacks.
Eventually the US made a deal with the Taliban: They would pull out if the militants agreed not to host terrorist groups. But talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government failed. US-led forces withdrew this year and the Taliban have now retaken most of the country.
The desire to stay at home and shut yourself away from a troubling world is completely understandable. There is no surprise that "America First" as a slogan had such resonance. George W Bush was not advocating that back in 2001 - but there were no US troops in Afghanistan or Iraq then. And that didn't keep America safe when early that morning, across those gin-clear blue skies passenger aeroplanes were hijacked and became al-Qaeda-guided missiles, flying into their targets killing thousands of people doing nothing more provocative than going about their daily lives.
There's also a difference between enforcing your will as the world's policeman, and being a peacekeeper. Thousands of American troops are still stationed in South Korea - even though the Korean war was 70 years ago. The calculation of successive US presidents has been that a tense peace is better than a hot war or a destabilised region.
Joe Biden was hoping his decision would result in headlines like "Afghan War Ends" or "America's longest war is over". But 20 years on, and the Taliban now re-establishing control with all that could flow from that, might historians in future judge that the 20th anniversary marked the start of the second Afghan war?
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Covid: CO2 monitors pledged to aid school ventilation - BBC News
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2021-08-20
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Schools in England are to be given CO2 monitors to as part of plans to limit the spread of Covid.
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Family & Education
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Around 300,000 carbon dioxide monitors are to be made available to schools in England next term to help improve ventilation and lessen Covid outbreaks.
The Department for Education said the portable monitors could be used to identify areas where more air-flow is needed.
Teaching unions have been calling for urgent extra ventilation measures.
They welcomed the pledge, but added any ventilation needs picked up by the monitors must be acted upon.
Most Covid safety restrictions have been relaxed in England's schools. Neither masks, bubble groups nor socially distancing rules are required this coming term.
Many schools have been opening windows and doors to keep air moving around classrooms to lessen the likelihood of Covid outbreaks, but this is easier in warmer weather.
Pupils will be offered twice weekly Covid testing and two tests at school when the autumn term starts to lessen the amount of infection coming into school.
However, those who have come into contact with a confirmed case will no longer have to isolate.
The removal of restrictions has left teachers and some parents concerned that the mass-mixing of pupils may lead to a spike in Covid cases.
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said: "Providing all schools with CO2 monitors will help them make sure they have the right balance of measures in place, minimising any potential disruption to education and allowing them to focus on world class lessons and catch up for the children who need it.
"By keeping up simple measures such as ventilation and testing, young people can now enjoy more freedom at school and college," he added.
The DfE says it is prioritising special schools and alternative provision for the delivery of CO2 monitors, as they are likely to have higher rates of vulnerable pupils.
But a statement on Friday made clear that this £25m batch of CO2 monitors has yet to be fully procured, less than two weeks before many schools return.
However, it said: "All schools and colleges are expected to receive at least partial allocations during the autumn term, enabling all settings to monitor areas where they believe airflow may be weakest."
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "In truth, this equipment should have been in place ready for the start of the autumn term, and arguably a lot earlier in the crisis, but it is a case of better late than never.
"Government guidance to schools and colleges on reducing the risk of coronavirus transmission highlights the importance of keeping spaces well ventilated, but doesn't go much further than recommending that windows should be opened to improve natural ventilation.
"This is challenging in the depths of a British winter and does not make for an environment which is conducive to learning. Our understanding is that carbon dioxide monitors will indicate when spaces need ventilating thereby reducing the need to keep windows open all the time."
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: "This is a really welcome first step in accepting our argument that funding is needed for good ventilation.
"It follows examples set by administrations in New York City, Scotland and Ireland.
"Sadly, Gavin Williamson failed to get on the front-foot over the summer but the initial investment of £25m in CO2 monitors is welcome now and will start to make a difference. It is vital, though, that government must also commit to supporting schools to address any ventilation problems identified by these monitors."
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Covid: UK vaccine booster scheme likely to start in September - Sajid Javid - BBC News
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2021-08-20
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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The proposed rollout of third doses is likely to start in September, the health secretary says.
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UK
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A UK Covid vaccine booster scheme will take place and is likely to start next month, the health secretary has said.
Sajid Javid said he was uncertain of the exact start date as the government was waiting for the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation's "final advice" before proceeding.
Mr Javid added the "most vulnerable" would be offered the third jab first.
However, it remains unclear whether the booster scheme will be for all adults, or just some, more vulnerable groups.
Interim advice from the JCVI, released last month, suggested more than 30 million of the most vulnerable people - including all over-50s - should receive a third dose.
Asked about the scheme on Thursday, Mr Javid said: "We are going to have a booster scheme. It will start some time in September.
"I couldn't tell you exactly when because before we start it... we need to get the final advice from our group of experts, our independent scientific and medical advisers, the JCVI, and so we're waiting for their final opinion."
Earlier in the day, Prof Adam Finn told the BBC that the JCVI, of which he is a member, would be "imminently deciding" that some people "will need a third dose, particularly people who we know are very unlikely to be well protected by those first two doses".
"But I think we do need more evidence before we can make a firm decision on a much broader booster programme," he added.
The health secretary says "a" booster campaign will take place, but the more important question is "who" will be boosted. We still don't know.
There are scientific and ethical arguments about a booster campaign.
For some there is a clear benefit - particularly those with weakened immune systems in whom it takes three doses to do the job of two.
But for the rest of the population, the evidence so far shows two doses are providing lasting protection from becoming seriously ill and needing hospital treatment.
Whether a mass vaccination campaign is necessary or should be far more targeted is the subject of intense debate.
This comes at a time that rich countries are being accused of giving vaccines to people at little risk from Covid and that would save far more lives if they were shared with the world.
About 70% of the entire UK population has had at least one jab. In the poorest countries that figure is about 1%.
The announcement comes after it was revealed more than 125,000 16 and 17-year-olds in England have had the vaccine in the two weeks since the NHS was given approval to offer that age group a jab.
In total, 47,460,526 first doses have now been given across the UK, while 41,157,069 people have had two doses.
But the decision to offer people in the UK a third jab is not without controversy.
Immunologist Prof Peter Openshaw, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), which advises the government, said the "question about boosters is a contentious one".
He said studies into the effectiveness of booster schemes were still ongoing and "everyone is very keen that if we do have surplus vaccines, that they're not necessarily used in this country, but might be sent overseas".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Immunologist Prof Peter Openshaw: "The question of boosters is a contentious one"
And, earlier this month, the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group said doses needed to "go where they can have the greatest impact" - to protect unvaccinated people abroad.
Prof Sir Andrew Pollard, who led the team that created the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, said decisions on whether to give boosters "should be scientifically driven".
Asked whether the JCVI had concerns about plans for the booster scheme, Mr Javid said: "It's only with their expert advice that government would want to continue with their plans.
"I don't want to prejudge what they're going to say but, based on their interim advice, I think we can be confident that we will start a booster scheme next month."
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Grenfell Tower: Man accused of burning model to face retrial - BBC News
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2021-08-02
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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Paul Bussetti will face a new trial after the High Court quashed his previous acquittal.
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London
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The model was burned at a bonfire party in south London on 3 November 2018
A father who filmed a cardboard model of Grenfell Tower being burned on a bonfire will face a second trial, the High Court has ruled.
The clip was recorded at a party in south London a year after the fire, which killed 72 people.
Paul Bussetti was cleared of posting the "grossly offensive" video in August 2019, but the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) appealed against the verdict.
In a judgement on Friday, the High Court quashed Mr Bussetti's acquittal.
The clip of the cardboard building, which had "Grenfell Tower" written on it, was recorded at a party attended by about 30 people in south London on 3 November 2018, Westminster Magistrates' Court previously heard.
It was later uploaded to YouTube and sparked outrage, with a relative of one of the people who died in the blaze calling it "revolting".
During his previous trial Paul Bussetti told the court the incident was a "joke"
Mr Bussetti, of South Norwood, was accused of sending "grossly offensive" material via a public communications network.
He was found not guilty after a two-day trial.
Magistrates said they could not be sure the film was taken by Mr Bussetti after it was revealed a second video from the party had also been shared on WhatsApp.
The then 47-year-old also told magistrates the effigy had been created by his friend and the characters featured on the model were meant to represent "the majority of people that were at the party", not people who died in the disaster.
In his ruling, Lord Justice Bean said that he did not accept Mr Bussetti's argument - that the figures in the bonfire were his friends - as a defence.
He also said the trial judge should have found that the two videos of the bonfire were similar.
Mr Bussetti will face a retrial at Westminster Magistrates' Court in front of a different judge and was also ordered to pay the CPS' costs of £6,095 within 28 days.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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Gabby Petito: Body found in Wyoming is missing 'van life' blogger - BBC News
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2021-09-21
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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A coroner says the 22-year-old's death was a homicide but gives no details as to how she died.
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US & Canada
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The FBI has confirmed that a body found inside a Wyoming national park on Sunday belongs to the missing "van life" blogger Gabby Petito.
A coroner made an initial finding that her death was homicide but gave no indication as to how she died.
Ms Petito, 22, was visiting Grand Teton National Park with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, 23.
Police are currently searching for Mr Laundrie, whose whereabouts are unknown.
He is considered a "person of interest" in the case, but has not been charged with any crime.
No details from the post-mortem have been released.
"Teton County Coroner Dr Brent Blue confirmed the remains are those of Gabrielle Venora Petito... Coroner Blue's initial determination for the manner of death is homicide," the FBI's Denver office tweeted.
The couple had been travelling for several weeks before Mr Laundrie returned home to Florida alone with their white van on 1 September. He did not contact police or the Petito family on his return.
Several weeks earlier, police in the Utah town of Moab were called to a possible domestic violence incident.
Bodycam footage showed Ms Petito crying and complaining about her mental health. A police report later said Mr Laundrie claimed Ms Petito had struck him during an argument.
No charges were filed, with officers recommending that the couple spend the night apart. What happened next is unclear.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Police stopped Gabby Petito more than two weeks ago
Mr Laundrie's family reported him missing over the weekend. They claim he left for a hike on 14 September and never returned. He had refused to speak with investigators before disappearing.
The search for Mr Laundrie has focused on a 24,000-acre nature reserve near his home in North Port, Florida.
Police are using dogs, drones, and all-terrain vehicles for the search, which officers say is complicated by difficult, swampy terrain.
Additionally, police are investigating hundreds of reported sightings of Mr Laundrie, including more than a dozen from Alabama, which borders Florida to the west.
On Monday, investigators searched the Laundrie family home. Agents were then seen removing several boxes from the house and towing away a silver Ford Mustang.
The case has captivated the public, with each new development becoming the focus of web sleuths on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Twitter.
As of Tuesday, the hashtag #GabbyPetito had received more than 650 million views on TikTok alone, according to the Associated Press.
• None What do we know about case?
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58646087
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Ex-BBC employee reports alleged fashion sex assault - BBC News
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2021-09-03
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['https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews']
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She claims she was sexually assaulted while working to expose abuse in the fashion industry and has given a statement to French police.
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Entertainment & Arts
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Lisa Brinkworth worked undercover as a model in a documentary for the BBC's Donal McIntyre Investigates series in 1998
A former BBC reporter who claims she was sexually assaulted while working undercover to expose abuse in the fashion industry has given a statement to French police.
Lisa Brinkworth posed as a model in a documentary for the BBC's Donal McIntyre Investigates series in 1998.
She alleges she was sexually assaulted by one of the world's biggest model agents, Gerald Marie, during filming.
Along with 13 other former models, she is giving details of her alleged assault to French authorities who have begun a preliminary investigation.
"I would very much like to see justice for them. And particularly because they were just so young and powerless at the time.
"When it happened to me... I was much older, I was working as a journalist, but when I think about them, at 16 or 17 [years old] in some cases, and completely powerless on their own with him, that's what gives me the drive to carry on."
Gerald Marie, who was the former European head of Elite Models, through his lawyer, issued a statement saying he "refutes with dismay these false and defamatory allegations".
"He shall be withholding his eventual statements until speaking to the competent authorities."
Gerald Marie has denied the allegations, made by at least 14 women
According to a report in the Guardian newspaper, the investigation is being led by a specialist child protection unit in France.
Lisa says that after a dinner with other models and Marie's business friends, she accompanied a small group, including Marie, to a club, where he pinned her down to a chair and sexually assaulted her. She said the incident was witnessed by a number of people, including her colleague Donal MacIntyre.
Afterwards, she recorded her account of the assault on camera, but did not go to the police.
"I was directed not to at the time, because it would have cut short the investigation. At that time, we were working very intensively undercover. I was working 20 hour days, I think we were exhausted. We were so focused on the story. I didn't question that wisdom. And I know now I should have done.
"And then of course, in retrospect, I wish I had. It's only recently when I decided to look at this again, and I started to investigate and I started to revisit this, and women were prepared to speak out."
Lisa Brinkworth recorded her account of the assault on camera at the time
After the documentary aired in November 1999, Elite Models sued the BBC alleging misrepresentation.
They reached a confidential settlement which included the BBC not airing the documentary ever again. The BBC also told Lisa that the settlement agreement prevented it providing footage to her.
"It just seems so, so wrong to me that these women have gone through some decades really carrying this trauma," Lisa says.
"I feel responsibility myself because I started doing that work. And I feel that the settlement with Elite sort of halted progress."
Under French law, all of the women have exhausted their statute of limitation - the time in which they could have pursued a criminal case against Gerald Marie.
But Anne-Claire Lejeune, Lisa's lawyer, says she argued with the Paris prosecutor that Lisa was prevented at the time from being able to seek criminal justice and therefore her statute of limitations should be paused in order for an investigation to begin.
She says that argument, combined with the number of women making similar accusations against Marie, ultimately convinced the prosecutor to give the go-ahead for a preliminary investigation.
"I had four victims who contacted me last September, who told me their stories, that they were raped - when they were a minor, for some of them, and for others when they were 20 or 22, and they wanted to press charges against Gerald Marie.
"So we submitted their testimonies to the French Prosecutor and he decided to open a preliminary investigation against Gerald Marie for rapes and sexual assault."
Anne-Claire says she has so far spoken with 31 women who have detailed similar accusations against Gerald Marie. She confirms that 14 will be interviewed by French authorities, but the rest are "not ready to talk officially right now".
"For women who don't feel ready to talk, they can give their testimony without giving their names. They can stay anonymous during the investigation. They can write to me and I'll submit it to the prosecutor or they can write to the prosecutor directly."
Lisa believes the undercover recordings she gathered for the BBC documentary are evidence of her assault and has requested the footage from her former employer. So far, she says, they have refused to pass it on to her.
According to the New York Times, ex model Carrie Otis has launched a separate legal action against Gerald Marie, accusing him of repeatedly raping her in Paris when she was 17.
Catherine Donaldson is also going to Paris to give an account of her sexual assault accusation against Gerald Marie. She says in 1985, when she was an aspiring model, he invited her to his apartment after convincing her he was having a party. No-one else turned up, she claims, and Marie offered her drugs, which she declined, before he "pounced on her", sexually assaulting her.
"My agent in England knew that this could potentially happen to me in Paris, but as she said, she thought I could handle it," says Catherine.
"It was recognised, enough people knew he was doing that. He was allowed."
She later went on to make a film called Couch, which was a fictionalised version, she says of her experience with Gerald Marie.
Laurie Marsden, who lives in Australia, claims in that 1982, Gerald Marie pushed her onto a bed and attempted to rape her after a party at his flat in Paris.
"One of the questions that people ask is, well, why didn't you report it at the time? And I say that is the wrong question. The question is, why did it take so long for women to be heard, for women to feel comfortable to come forward and tell their stories, for women to be believed and not to be victim blamed?"
In a statement, the BBC said it was "doing everything" it could to assist Lisa with her complaint.
"We take these matters very seriously and we know this is distressing for Lisa Brinkworth. We are doing everything we can to help Lisa pursue her complaint with the French authorities.
"Our lawyers have provided documents to the French investigators and to Lisa and we are in continuing discussions with Lisa and her lawyers on how we can help further as the legal process progresses."
Anne-Claire says she believes there are potentially more women, within the statute of limitations, who can contribute to the investigation, but who are unaware that one is being conducted.
"That's why my clients want to send a message saying if you have been a victim then please come forward."
Have you been personally affected by the issues raised in this story? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.
Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:
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